Kitchen worktops in Elm Park

Yes. A planned 1930s estate built to a small number of repeating house types, so the kitchens are consistently modest — a narrow rear room with the back door in the corner and barely 2.4m of usable wall. Almost every job here involves either taking out the dining room wall or adding a shallow rear extension to get a workable L, and the client usually keeps a separate utility space by the back door. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. We would rather ask than guess.

1930s Costain-built estate semi, 1930s terrace and post-war infill. Cottage estate houses were built to a small number of standard plans, so the kitchen is compact, roughly square and predictable in the good sense. 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.

Uniform estate roads with front gardens, dropped kerbs on many houses and a side alley between every pair, so there is nearly always a route to the back without going through the hall. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. The house types repeat, but the back-door corner is the killer detail — we always confirm the door swing before finalising the return length.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. One visit, our own installers. 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.