Kitchen worktops in Abbey Wood

Yes. Interwar semis with a small rear kitchen and a separate dining room, many now knocked into one, sitting next to newer flats around the station with compact open-plan runs. Rear extensions have become far more common since the station opened, and that is where the islands appear. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

1930s semi, postwar council estate, 1990s infill and 2010s Elizabeth line new-build. Air bricks that once ventilated the original floor now open into the extension, and one of them is generally sitting behind a base unit. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

Suburban and mostly easy, front drives or a kerbside stop, though the newer blocks by the station have controlled parking and some estate roads have very little turning space for a long van. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before.

Worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. Extension jobs here often want a large island in one piece, so check the new floor slab is level before templating, not after.

Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. A side passage and a back door mean the stone rarely has to come through the house, which changes the job more than most people expect. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. One visit, our own installers.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.

They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Solid brick with a sand and cement render is firm to work against and reliably out of plumb across the length of a run. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. The route is walked before the first lift.