Kitchen worktops in Queen's Park

Yes. Uniform two-storey terraces where nearly every improved house has done the same thing: infill the side return and add a rear extension, producing a wide kitchen-diner with a 4m run along the party wall and a 2.4m island under a roof light. Marble-look quartz on the island with a separate utility in the old lean-to is the recurring brief. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. Two hours is the realistic figure.

late Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace and small purpose-built block. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. The laser plots the bow along the back of the run, which is why a tape reading taken beforehand never matches. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Conservation-area streets with no dropped kerbs and permit parking enforced all day, and side returns are built out, so almost every slab goes through the front door and along a narrow hall with a return at the stairs. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop templating, 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. One visit, done properly. Because the side return has been built over, there is no side access left on most of these houses, so hall width and the stair newel decide the maximum piece.

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. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. Real angles, not plan angles. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit, our own installers. 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.