Kitchen worktops in Figges Marsh

Yes. Terraces off the London Road have narrow rear kitchens that stay galley-shaped, typically 2.2m of run against one wall with the cooker under a window. Flats over the shops on the main road are small single-run kitchens where the top and a matching upstand is the whole scope. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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.

Interwar terrace, Edwardian terrace, Above-shop flat and Postwar infill. Working hours are constrained by the business underneath, so noisy work has a window rather than a day. Post-war terraces are typically blockwork or early lightweight block with a hard render coat, and the kitchen has usually been reconfigured at least once, leaving patched areas of newer plaster next to original render that sit at different depths. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure.

The London Road frontage is a busy bus corridor with red-route style restrictions in places and no realistic standing, so deliveries go in early. Above-shop flats are entered through a shared street door with a straight steep stair and no turning space at the top. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. Joint positions follow from that.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop fabrication, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Proven on the bench before dispatch. Steep single-flight stairs to above-shop flats mean anything over 2.4m has to be cut down first, measure the stairwell before deciding where the joint goes.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.