Kitchen worktops in Becontree

Yes. The heart of the Becontree estate, built by the London County Council between the wars to a limited set of house types, so the same kitchen comes up again and again: a small rear scullery with a copper recess or larder, a back lobby, and a separate dining room next door. Almost every job involves removing the lobby and larder walls to make one room, which yields a 3-3.5m L with a peninsula and finally somewhere to put a dishwasher. 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.

1920s-1930s LCC cottage estate house, ex-council terrace and ex-council semi. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. Unit height is the other issue: legs sit on an uneven screed or hard concrete with no give, so the template reads the top of every carcass rather than assuming they share a height. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Long straight estate roads, front gardens, verges and generally unrestricted parking, plus a side alley or rear path serving most blocks, so unloading is genuinely easy here compared with inner Redbridge. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. 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. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. These houses were built fast and nothing is square, so we template every Becontree kitchen and allow a proper scribe on both ends of the run.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.