Kitchen worktops in Barnes Cray

Yes. Small planned housing built for the nearby works: uniform terraces with narrow rear kitchens around 2m wide, often with the bathroom leading off the kitchen, so a straight replacement in situ is the normal job. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1920s-30s industrial estate housing, postwar terrace and 1960s flats. Poured screed over steel decking can fall away across a long run, so level is checked across the whole room before anything is packed. Converted warehouses put the kitchen against original brick or blockwork that has never been made flat, so scribes of 15 to 20mm along a run are normal and every piece is templated to the wall exactly as it is rather than to a drawing. The old top hid it; the new one will not.

Flat riverside ground with wide but frequently blocked estate roads and industrial traffic; parking is on-street and generally available. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. A piece is cut to the turn it has to clear.

Worktop replacement and worktop fabrication, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Yield is what makes batching worth doing at all. Bathrooms and boilers off the kitchen put pipework in the run, expect notching and awkward cut-outs behind the units.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Left and right alcove pieces are marked and stay marked. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Join positions belong to whoever signed. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Exposed brick and steel is the whole job here, because neither of them presents a flat plane to scribe to. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Ceilings are high and there are usually no wall units, so a splashback runs to whatever height is decided rather than to a cupboard. Many of these kitchens are island pods in the middle of an open plan with waste and feeds coming up through the floor, so the island cannot be nudged to suit the stone and the stone gets cut to suit the island. Same units, straighter line, better surface.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Money does not move until the template is done. Open plan means long uninterrupted runs and an island in the middle of the room with every edge on show. Old top out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon, with a plumber either side of us. A single day, planned properly.