Kitchen worktops in Balham

Yes. Whole-house terraces get the standard rear extension with a run and an island of about 2.2m, but a large share of the stock is converted flats where the kitchen has been fitted into a former reception room and is open to the living space. The 1930s mansion blocks have original narrow galleys that owners keep and simply re-top. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, 1930s art deco mansion block and Flat conversion. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. What is under the old top is the real question.

The High Road is a bus corridor with no standing, and the residential streets either side are permit-controlled with heavy parking pressure. Converted flats above ground level are reached by a communal stair with a half-landing and often a fire door at the top that has to come off its hinges. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us. In the mansion blocks the original galley walls are solid brick and out of plumb top to bottom, so the upstand needs scribing separately from the worktop back edge.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Corners get their own pieces. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.