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. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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 day is built around that window.

small two-up two-down terrace, late Victorian bay-fronted terrace, flat over shop and modern rear extension. A two-up two-down has a kitchen that was never designed to be one, so the run is short, the ceiling is low and every millimetre of depth gets argued over. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

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. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop templating, 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. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.