Worktop templating in Sydenham Hill

Yes. Sydenham Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE26. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. Two hours is the realistic figure. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Handmade brick and lime plaster move visibly along a run, and a straight-cut back edge shows it immediately. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. No stone is ever cut from a plan. The big-island jobs come from up here and they need a proper lift plan — a 3.2m waterfall piece over gravel is not a two-man carry.

Long private drives, steep approaches off the hill road, gravel and gated entrances, and houses sitting well above or below their gate at the end of a stepped path. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. 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. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. All runs and the island carcass fixed down and levelled to one datum, with the sink, tap and hob on site - an island cannot be templated while it is still loose or sitting on packers. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. No stone is cut from a plan.