Worktop installation in Wimbledon Village

Yes. Wimbledon Village is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW19. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. We would rather ask than guess. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A townhouse is tall and narrow with the kitchen at the bottom, so every piece goes down a staircase rather than along a hall. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. This is book-matching and mitred waterfall work — vein direction has to be agreed on the actual slab before cutting, because a mismatched island end is the one thing that gets rejected here.

The High Street has loading bans through much of the day and there is effectively no on-street parking on the roads facing the Common. Many houses sit behind gravel drives with a wide but soft approach, and side gates are frequently too narrow for a slab, so the carry goes through the front door and down a hallway with a return. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop design & quotation. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Protection goes down first.