Kitchen worktops in Collier Row

Yes. A large stretch of inter-war and 1950s semis where the standard remodel is knocking the kitchen and dining room together to make a broad U with a peninsula, keeping a door out to a side utility or the garage. Run lengths land around 3m plus a 2m return, and full-height larder units go where the old chimney breast was. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1930s semi, 1950s semi, 1960s terrace and modern infill. Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Wide estate roads with verges, individual driveways and garages, and unrestricted parking on most streets, so the van gets close and the carry is short and level. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop design & quotation, in that order. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Garage-side utilities are common here, so we usually template the kitchen and the utility together and cut both from the same slab batch to keep the colour consistent.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.