Kitchen worktops in Anerley

Yes. Similar terraced stock to Penge but on much steeper ground, and a higher share of flat conversions, so the common job is a compact galley of around 2.4m with a wall-hung boiler and a slim breakfast bar at the end. Landlord replacements and first-time-buyer refits dominate. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Booking the bay for the whole day is the honest plan.

Victorian terrace, Victorian semi-detached villa, 1930s flats and 1960s block. Ceilings in the principal rooms are three metres or more, so a full-height panel behind a hob is a taller piece here than the same kitchen would need anywhere else. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.

Streets run steeply up from the station with parking bays on the slope, and many houses have a flight of steps up to a raised front door before you even get inside. Where the staircase comes down into the hall the bottom treads project into the width, and nothing about that can be moved for the day. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Ordered together, or the match is luck. Carrying stone up a raised front entrance on a hill is a two-plus-two job, and we allow for it in the pricing rather than turning up short-handed.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A deferred splashback still comes off this drawing. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Suspended timber floors flex underfoot, and anything that moves beneath a unit shows up later as a lipped join. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The awkward piece goes in before the easy ones.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Protection goes down along it first.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Access is checked against the longest piece first.