Kitchen worktops in Newington Green

Yes. Very early terraces around the green with small original rooms and heavy constraints, plus Victorian houses split into flats, so most kitchens are 2.4-3m single runs. The larger whole houses on the surrounding streets get a modest rear extension with an L and a short peninsula rather than an island. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

seventeenth-century terrace, Georgian terrace, Victorian terrace and post-war estate. Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The green is bounded by bus routes with restricted loading and the surrounding streets are permit-only with filtered junctions closing several approaches. The oldest terraces are listed, with very narrow original doors and steep straight stairs behind them. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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 replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Units fitted, fixed and level first. The oldest houses have doorways well under standard width, so measure the door leaf and the frame rebate rather than the nominal opening before deciding a piece will go in.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.