Worktop templating in Harlesden

Yes. Harlesden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW10. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. Two to three hours, once the units are in. Back-addition kitchens are rarely square to the main house, so expect a taper across a 3m run and template the whole piece as one rather than assuming a right angle at the return.

No driveways to speak of, red route and bus lane restrictions on the main roads, and controlled parking on almost every side street, so a dispensation or a very early start is usually needed to get the van close enough for a hall carry. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions. 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 replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. The drawing leaves site complete. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. Units fixed and packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan.