Kitchen worktops in Fulham Broadway

Yes. Dense flat stock around the station and the stadium, so kitchens are small and open into the living space, generally 2.4-3m with a peninsula and an integrated appliance stack at one end. A lot of these are rental refurbishments on a tight programme, meaning template-to-fit turnaround matters more than exotic stone. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. 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. The van has to stand through both halves of the day.

Victorian terrace converted to flats, flat over shop, 1990s-2000s apartment block and mansion flat. These flats have been reconfigured more than once, so the kitchen often sits in what was a bedroom with services run a long way to reach it. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Matchdays at the ground bring road closures, parking suspensions and a controlled crowd zone across the surrounding streets, which makes a fit day there effectively impossible - check the fixture list when booking. On normal days the side streets are permit-controlled and the flats above the parades are up a single narrow street-door stair with a sharp turn onto the landing. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Never book an install on a home matchday - the road closures alone will cost you the slot, never mind the parking suspension.

A breakfast bar on the outer side is an overhang like any other, and the support under it is sized for people leaning on the end rather than for the weight of the stone alone. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

The person choosing the surface is not the person who will cook on it, which argues for a finish that absorbs ordinary wear rather than one that rewards careful housekeeping. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A day out of use, told to whoever lives there. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. A market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. A one-hour window will not hold a two-way job.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. The front rooms sit over the shop window with a structural beam beneath them, and the floor either side of that beam is not at one level. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.