Kitchen worktops in Battersea

Yes. The artisan cottage streets have very shallow plans where the kitchen fills the whole ground-floor rear, so a single 3m run with a slim return is the realistic maximum. Larger Victorian terraces towards the park take a rear infill with a compact island of around 2m. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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. Loading out is loading in, done in reverse and heavier.

Victorian artisan cottage, Late Victorian terrace, Edwardian mansion flat and 2010s riverside apartment. 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. 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. The shell is the constant here; the surface is not.

Cottage streets are narrow, fully permit-controlled and parked solid, with front doors opening straight onto a 1.2m pavement. Ceilings are low and the hall is short, so a slab cannot be swung, it goes in flat and low. 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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Cottage kitchens here run out of headroom before they run out of width, so check the height under the stair bulkhead where the run passes beneath it.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. A corner that was butted can be mitred this time. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward metre takes the longest. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

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 half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done. 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.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. An inward-opening door swinging back against the wall leaves less clear opening than the frame measures, and a storm porch in front of it is tighter again. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.

The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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. Two carries in one day doubles what the distance costs.

Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Sealed before we leave.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Old runs are rarely square, and stone will not forgive it.