Kitchen worktops in Dartmouth Park

Yes. Substantially whole houses in owner occupation, so the classic job is a rear or side-return extension with a 4m run along one wall and a true island of 2.4-3m. Kitchens sit across the back of the ground floor with doors to a long garden, and clients here nearly always want a matching island top rather than a peninsula. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

late Victorian terrace, Victorian semi-detached villa and Edwardian house. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Steep tree-lined streets with permit bays both sides and no room to double park, and the gradient matters when you are walking a slab on an A-frame. Front doors are up a short flight with a long straight hall to the rear, so it is the kerb-to-door step that catches people out rather than the internal run. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first. The island is usually the biggest single piece of the job, so book the extra pair of hands and check the extension floor is level first, because new screed over old joist lines rarely is.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. Shape first, area second. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

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. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Nothing payable until template. 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.