Kitchen worktops in Eden Park

Yes. Quiet inter-war streets around the station where kitchens are typically a modest rear room extended by 2-3m, giving an L-shape with a run under the window and a peninsula facing the garden doors. Fewer full islands than Bickley or Chislehurst because the footprints are smaller. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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, 1930s detached, 1950s bungalow and 1980s close housing. The kitchen is usually a rear room extended into the garden, with the original external wall now standing inside the run. Where the room has been knocked through to the dining room or opened into a later extension, the two floors rarely sit at the same level and the whole opening has to be shot across from one datum. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Short front drives that take one car, so the van usually parks half on the road, and side gates that are just about wide enough if the bins are moved first. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, 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. 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. Peninsulas here nearly always end at a set of garden doors, so the end panel and overhang have to clear the door swing, which is worth checking at template rather than on fit day.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. 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.