Kitchen worktops in Dulwich Village

Yes. Large detached and semi-detached houses with rear garden-room kitchens - a 4m run, a full island of 2.4m to 3m, a second prep sink and a separate utility are all normal, while the 1960s Span-style houses have a more compact open-plan kitchen sized around the original modular grid. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

Georgian villa, Victorian detached, 1960s Span estate and postwar detached. The window sits in the middle of the run over the sink, and its board and cill set the limit on how tall an upstand can be. The bench work is about keeping enough solid material between them - a hob cut-out too near a sink cut-out leaves a narrow bridge that will not survive being lifted, so we either move the appliance positions on the template or split the run and put a join over a gable between the two cut-outs. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out.

The Dulwich Estate scheme of management governs external alterations, so extensions and rooflights are consented and often set back; the roads are wide with driveways and off-street standing, which makes this some of the easiest unloading in the borough. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Nested for the job in front of us. Clients here specify large-format slabs and book-matched islands, so slab selection and vein layout are part of the job rather than an afterthought.

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. It is the shape rather than the square metreage that moves the number, which is why two kitchens the same size quote differently. No installed rate per square metre, because it is not a real number. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Changes cost a piece, not a tweak. 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.