Kitchen worktops in Coulsdon

Yes. Split between older inter-war semis with extended rear kitchens and newer estate housing where the kitchen-diner is already open-plan and only the tops get upgraded. The newer houses come with narrow 600mm cabinets and a peninsula rather than an island. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

1930s semi, post-war detached, 2000s Cane Hill new-build and town-centre flats. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. That is the shape of the day.

The valley floor around the town centre is straightforward with parking, but the houses on the chalk slopes either side have steep approach roads and tiered front gardens with retaining walls and steps. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. On the newer estate housing the cabinets are shallow and the walls are plasterboard on dabs, so any breakfast bar overhang needs proper brackets fixed back to timber, not just glued to the carcass.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. 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.

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. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after. 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.