Kitchen worktops in Askew Road

Yes. Smaller cottage-scale terraces where the whole ground floor is only about 4.5m wide, so a side return infill only buys another metre and the kitchen ends up as a 3.2m run with a 1.2-1.6m peninsula rather than a full island. Ceiling heights in the rear addition are low, which pushes people toward slim 20mm tops and upstands instead of full-height stone. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. 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. The clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

small two-up two-down terrace, late Victorian bay-fronted terrace, flat over shop and modern rear extension. There is no back addition on these, so the kitchen is the original rear room and the run is one wall long with a door at each end of it. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Old floors get packed, not argued with.

Narrow streets with parking both sides mean a Luton effectively blocks the road, so a short controlled unload with a spotter is the way to do it. Front doors open straight into a small hall with the stairs immediately in front, so the turn from front door to kitchen is often less than 2m of clear travel. The front door is often the cheapest hundred millimetres on the route, because a door lifted off its hinges gives back the width its own thickness was taking. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. It decides whether the old top leaves whole.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Cam-lock carcasses get braced before stone lands. The front-door-to-stair distance is the number that matters on these cottages - if you cannot swing it in the hall, it goes over the back fence.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Access is checked against the longest piece first. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The old top hid it. The drawing will not. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. A tired carcass is said before, not discovered after. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. 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.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. 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. 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.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. That rear wall carries the back door and the only window, which leaves very little uninterrupted length for a sink run. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.