Kitchen worktops in Fortune Green

Yes. More whole houses than the streets nearer the station, so kitchens sit at the rear of the ground floor and are often already extended into a small rear infill giving an L of about 3.5m plus a return. Islands only appear where two rooms have been knocked together, otherwise a peninsula against the old chimney breast. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Edwardian terrace, 1930s semi, purpose-built block and post-war infill. Access is a question about the plot rather than the house: a narrow frontage between older buildings with nowhere obvious to stand a van. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Quiet residential streets with permit parking and better van access than most of NW6, though the climb up from Fortune Green Road is a real factor on the carry. Front doors open into a porch and then a hall with a right turn at the stairs, which is the pinch point on almost every house. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Edwardian rear walls here are usually rendered and bowed, so expect to scribe the back edge and pack the units before setting anything down.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.