Worktop design and quotation in Kingston Hill

Yes. Kingston Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT2. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. 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. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. Nothing here is added after the fact. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. If the island top is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, you buy a second slab to gain that overhang — the whole slab, not the part you use — and that is a material decision worth more than any other line on the quote. Priced from the building, not from a rate card. Gravel drives and front steps mean the trolley stops at the gate, so plan a carry route and protect the front steps before anything comes off the van.

A long steep main road with limited stopping, and side roads with driveways and gravel that a slab trolley sinks into; several properties sit above the road with a flight of front steps. 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. We price the carry from what you tell us about the route, so photographs of the approach are worth more to us than a floor plan. Nothing about it gets estimated after the fact. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop installation and worktop templating. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Nothing payable until we template. 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Material is the slab only, and it says so.

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. 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. 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. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Better on the quote than in a variation. Send the island size including the overhang and which side people sit at, the stool count, and confirm the edge profile you want and which edges are to receive it. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Nothing payable until template.