Kitchen worktops in Pinner

Yes. The village core has genuinely old, listed and locally listed houses with low beams, uneven floors and small kitchens that need bespoke joinery and short scribed runs, while the surrounding Metroland streets have big semis with full-width rear extensions and island kitchens. The two demand completely different specifications on the same day. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

timber-framed and Georgian village houses, 1930s Metroland semi and detached and small mews and courtyard developments. A period cottage has low ceilings, thick rubble-filled walls and a floor that has never been level, and the worktop is the thing that has to look straight. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

The High Street and the lanes around it are narrow, sloping and heavily restricted with limited loading windows, so village jobs need an early slot; the surrounding suburban roads have proper driveways and no such problem. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop templating, worktop design & quotation 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Nothing payable until we template. In the old village houses nothing is straight and the ceiling may be lower than the slab is long, so check whether the piece can be tilted upright inside the room before it comes off the van.

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. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Send photographs of every corner of the room and it gets priced properly first time. Better on the quote than in a variation. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.