Kitchen worktops in Carshalton

Yes. The village core has period houses with irregular kitchens, thick walls and level changes, some with cellars underneath that limit island weight. Away from the ponds it becomes standard 1930s semi stock with rear kitchens and modest extensions. 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 templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Georgian and Victorian village house, Victorian terrace, 1930s semi and modern infill flats. A range or an Aga in an original recess is usually immovable, so the run is designed around it and the clearances come from the appliance. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Conservation-area streets around the ponds are narrow with limited waiting, and several period houses front directly onto the pavement with no drive and a step straight up into the hall. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. 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. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Period houses with cellars below the kitchen need the floor checked before an island goes in, because the joists were never sized for 300kg of stone in one spot.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. 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. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.