Kitchen worktops in Bush Hill Park

Yes. This is side-return infill country - the original narrow galley in the back addition gets widened by 1.8m, which turns a 2.1m run into a 4m run plus a small island or peninsula. The conservation area limits what you can do to the front but the rear is where the money goes. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs.

Edwardian garden-suburb semi, Victorian bay terrace and 1930s infill. Many of these had a bathroom or a WC built onto the far end of the addition, so the room now ends at a stud wall rather than at the original brickwork. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Roads are flat and wide but parked solid both sides thanks to the station controlled zone, so you often carry from 40-50m away. Front gardens are deep with a tiled path and a gate that needs lifting off. 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. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The doors are staying, so the colour answers to them. In an infilled side return the new run crosses the line of the old external wall - check for a level step and a soft spot in the floor before you template, because a 4m slab will telegraph any dip.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What is behind the old top decides the day. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Nothing to reseal is the point in a let. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The only window is in the side wall facing into the side return, so the room reads darker than its size and the worktop is doing much of the reflecting. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The beading was covering a bowed wall.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes.