Kitchen worktops in Chiswick

Yes. Most of the work is retrofit into side-return or full-width rear extensions, so the kitchen is a long single-wall galley of 4m to 5m facing an island of 2.8m to 3.4m. Above the shops and in the period conversions you get the opposite problem: a 2.2m galley with the boiler still on the wall. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. 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 kerb decides the start time.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian villa, 1930s mansion block and 2010s riverside apartment. Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

Controlled parking on effectively every street, no driveways on the terraces, and the final approach is 20mph residential roads off the A4 or A316 with school-run congestion morning and afternoon. Loading needs a suspension or an early slot. A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

Worktop installation, in that order. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear. Nearly every job here has an island longer than a standard slab, so where the joint lands gets argued out at template rather than left to the workshop.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A day out of use, told to whoever lives there. 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.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A Victorian hall arch sits lower than the ceiling either side of it, and it is the point a piece carried on edge meets first. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The addition is one room wide, so the run is a galley with a door at one end and a window at the other and no wall long enough for anything else. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Carried once, and carried properly.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. 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. Van to door is the distance that matters.