Kitchen worktops in Cannon Hill

Yes. Houses backing onto the common have kitchens reorientated to face the green, often with a peninsula under a rear window rather than a full extension. The 1960s low-rise blocks have compact fitted kitchens where a single 2.4m run and a return is the whole 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, 1960s low-rise flat and Postwar detached. The window sits in the middle of the run over the sink, and its board and cill set the limit on how tall an upstand can be. Rear or shared-path access is often the only way to bring a long piece in without turning it in the hall. That is the shape of the day.

Roads bordering the common are quiet but have limited turning space and grass verges that a loaded van will sink into after rain. Flats in the low-rise blocks are reached by external stairs with an open landing, which makes wind a genuine handling issue with a slab on edge. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. In the flats the window sill often sits lower than the worktop line, so a sill-height check has to happen before the sink run is cut.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Height change is checked before we cut. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. The wall has to be ready. 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.