Kitchen worktops in Oakleigh Park

Yes. Substantial older houses near the station with deep plans, where kitchens sit at the rear behind the old servants' arrangement and refits usually knock two or three small rooms into one. That leaves multiple structural piers, so the worktop run is broken into three or four shorter sections rather than one long sweep. 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. You are told before you commit to a date.

large Edwardian house, 1920s-30s detached and post-war infill. The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. 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.

Wide roads with driveways, but the railway cutting splits the area and several roads are no-through, which lengthens the drive-around. Front doors are typically raised a few steps above a long front path. 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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop installation, worktop templating 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. Everything is itemised: material, template, fabrication, fitting, each cut-out and each metre of upstand. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Knocking small rooms together leaves downstand beams and piers, so measure the wall thicknesses at worktop height rather than trusting a floor plan.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Every line has a reason next to it. 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.