How to prepare for template day: a fitter's checklist

Level in both directions, front to back and along the run. Our templater lays a long level across the whole line of cabinets and works from that. If one carcase sits 3mm high, the worktop bridges the high point and rocks, or it beds down and opens a shadow gap along the wall behind it.

Fixed to each other and fixed back to the wall. A unit that can still move will move, and it takes the worktop with it. We have templated runs that were sitting loose, come back to fit, and found the end cabinet had shifted while a plumber was working behind it.

Legs adjusted and locked off. If you are levelling on adjustable feet, set them and leave them alone. Do not raise a unit afterwards to clear a floor covering that has not gone down yet. Either lay the floor first, or know the exact thickness of what is going down, because the finished worktop height is taken from the top of the carcase on the day.

Once your units are solid and level, the next thing the templater looks at is what sits in them.

Get them out of the garage and stand them in the kitchen. The templater needs the actual sink, the actual tap and the actual hob, in their boxes with the paper templates and the fitting instructions. A model number is not enough. Two sinks sold under the same name can have different corner radii and different tap hole positions.

Undermounted sinks are the strictest of the lot. The cutout is machined in our own workshop to that exact bowl, and the polished inner edge that everybody sees is cut to within a millimetre. There is no adjusting it on site. If the sink is not here, that piece of stone does not get cut. If you are still deciding between an undermount or an inset sink, settle that before template day.

Hobs matter for the same reason and for one more. The cutout has to clear the hob body, and the stone left in front of it has to meet the manufacturer's minimum. On a 600mm deep top with a large bowl behind, we sometimes have to tell somebody their chosen hob will not sit where the designer drew it. That is a much better conversation at template than on fitting day.

With the sink and hob sorted, the templater also needs to see every appliance that changes the cabinets around them.

Integrated appliances change the carcases around them, and the carcases change the stone. A dishwasher wants its own opening under the worktop, and some models need a set clearance to the underside. If the machine has not arrived, we need the manufacturer's dimension drawing rather than the retailer's web listing.

Range cookers catch more people out than anything else. The stone is cut to the cooker with a working gap either side, and that gap comes off the cooker's real width, not the round number on the box. A cooker sold as 900mm can measure 897mm. Two pieces of stone land either side of it and both have to be right first time, so we want that appliance in the room.

Large fridges, wine coolers and anything that stands proud of the units all affect the end of a run and any upstand next to it. Tell us about them even if they are six weeks away.

Appliances are only half the picture. The walls and floors around your kitchen affect the template just as much.

Plastering finished, and dry. A skim coat applied after templating puts another few millimetres on the wall, and the top that fitted the old wall now stands off it. We scribe the back edge to the wall exactly as it is on the day, so the wall needs to be the wall. If you are considering full-height stone splashbacks, the wall behind them still needs to be flat and plastered before we template.

Tiling is a judgement call and worth deciding early. If tiles are going down to meet the worktop, template first and tile afterwards, so the tiles finish onto the stone or the upstand. If the wall is already tiled, we template to the tiles. What does not work is a wall that is half tiled, or tiling that goes on after we have measured bare plaster.

Flooring under the units should be laid, or its thickness confirmed in writing. And clear the room. We need to get boards and a laser across the whole run, and somebody up a stepladder with a paint roller in the corner costs everyone half a morning.

When the room is ready, the template itself is straightforward. Here is what happens on the visit.

A straightforward kitchen takes about an hour to template. A large island, a run with several returns, or an old room where nothing is square can take two. We would rather spend the extra half hour with a level in our hands than build a set of tops that have to be recut.

Template day is also when decisions about edge profiles are confirmed, and when the templater works out where each join will fall. These are not things we decide later in the workshop. They go onto the template and drive everything that follows.

When something is missing there are three outcomes and none of them is good. We template around it and leave that piece for later, which means a second visit and a second fitting day. We come back another day, which moves your fitting date by however long our diary is. Or we are asked to work from a drawing, and if the real item turns out different, the stone is already cut by then.

Once the template is right, the rest is ours to carry. The slab is cut, polished and joined by our experienced fabricators from those measurements, and it arrives to fit. Nothing is trimmed on your floor. That is why we are fussy on the day, and why the accuracy of this one visit decides how the finished kitchen looks along every joint and every wall.

If you are not certain you will be ready, say so before the day rather than on it. We would far sooner move the visit by a week than measure a kitchen that is still moving. Our free home visit is a good moment to walk through the sequence and work out what has to happen first.

Once the template is done, the physical strips and measurements go back to our own workshop. The slab you chose is pulled from the rack and laid out on the CNC bridge saw, and every piece of your kitchen is cut from that single stone. The CNC machine follows the template data exactly, cutting sink apertures, hob cutouts and edge profiles to within a fraction of a millimetre.

After cutting, every exposed edge is hand polished by our fabricators to the finish you picked, whether that is a high-gloss mirror or a soft honed surface. Undermount sinks are bonded to the stone on the bench and left to cure. Any joins that will be made on site are dry-fitted in the workshop first, so nothing is tried for the first time in your kitchen.

Fitting day is typically 7 to 10 working days after the template visit, depending on the complexity of the job and the stone you have chosen. On the day, our fitters bring the finished pieces in, set them on the cabinets, make the site joins, and connect the sink and hob cutouts to the appliances your plumber and electrician will hook up. A standard kitchen fit takes most of a day. You walk into a finished room that evening.

We select the slab, template it, fabricate it in our own workshop and fit it, so one team answers for the whole job. The home visit is free and there is no obligation.