Kitchen worktops in West Dulwich

Yes. Wide Edwardian and interwar semis on deeper plots, so the common project is a full-width rear extension of 5m to 6m across with a 4m run on the flank, an island parallel to it, and bifolds down the garden side that eat wall space and push storage into tall banks. 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. Nothing here is added after the fact.

Victorian semi, Edwardian detached, 1930s semi and postwar infill. Wider halls make the carry noticeably easier, and that alone can remove a join that a narrower terrace would have forced into the run. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Quieter roads with driveways and off-street parking, mature front hedges and low walls, and side passages that are usually just wide enough for a trolley if the gate comes off; a few roads run steeply which affects trolley control. 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. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Full-width extensions mean long unsupported spans at the island end, so the substructure normally needs adding to before a 20mm slab is laid.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. 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.