Kitchen worktops in Sundridge Park

Yes. Houses around the golf course and station tend to be deep-plan with the kitchen in a rear addition, so the common job is a galley run down one side plus a short return under a window looking onto a long garden. Utility rooms are often carved out of the old outhouse or side passage. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Edwardian villa, 1920s detached, 1930s semi and post-war infill detached. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. The junction between the old floor and the extension floor is where a run crossing it needs packing before stone goes on. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Sloping driveways and mature front hedges are the main issue, plus a lot of the older houses have a step up to a side gate that is too narrow for a slab, so it becomes a front-door carry with a turn at the bottom of the stairs. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Original rear additions here are rarely square, so the template has to pick up a taper across the run rather than assume parallel walls.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.