Kitchen worktops in Becontree Heath

Yes. Around the civic centre and Wood Lane there is a band of privately built 1930s semis that are noticeably more generous than the surrounding estate housing, with bigger rear rooms and space for a proper island once extended. These take full remodels with a 3m island and a long back run, in contrast to the smaller estate kitchens either side. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. 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. A suspension for the full day beats half a day lost.

1930s private semi, LCC estate house, post-war infill and modern flat. The kitchen has a door to the hall, a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the continuous run is short in every direction. Ex-council flats and maisonettes are built in dense concrete and blockwork, so anything that has to be fixed back, such as brackets under a peninsula or support for an end panel, goes in with proper anchors and an SDS rather than plasterboard fixings. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

Main roads through here are busy and junction-heavy, but the side streets have driveways, dropped kerbs and side gates, so the actual unloading is usually done off the main route. Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. The private 1930s semis here have deeper rooms than the estate houses next door, so we do not assume the standard Becontree layout when quoting.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. 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. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One person is responsible for the door that morning. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Height change is checked before we cut.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A passive vent or a ducted extract shaft takes a corner of the kitchen from floor to ceiling and cannot be reduced. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A thicker top changes what clears the top drawer.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Same shape, different cut list.