Kitchen worktops in East Sheen

Yes. Large Edwardian and interwar family houses where full-width rear extensions are the norm - a 4m run on the flank, a 2.4m island with a hob and downdraft or a ceiling extract, a boot room off the side return and a utility with its own shorter top. Where the drive is shared, the half-hour the van spends in the way is agreed with the neighbour in advance rather than apologised for at the time. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit.

Edwardian double-fronted house, 1930s semi, 1930s detached and postwar flats. Where the knock-through has taken in a rear bay, the far end of the room is three faces of window with no usable wall left at all. 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. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

Wide roads with front driveways and dropped kerbs at most houses, though the Upper Richmond Road side is a heavy through route; side passages are generally wide enough to bring stone round to a rear door. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside.

Worktop installation, 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. Rear glazing on three sides means low sun straight down the run, so a honed or textured finish is worth pushing over a polished black.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Scheme rules on working hours are checked first. 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 piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. These kitchens have usually been retiled twice and knocked through once, and both of those leave marks the worktop has to deal with. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Older buildings get the extra hour.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side.

Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.