Kitchen worktops in Gipsy Hill

Yes. The steepest ground in the borough means split-level houses where the kitchen is half a flight below the entrance level, typically an L-shaped room with a run under a rear window and a peninsula facing the garden view. Conversion flats take compact kitchens in former back bedrooms. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Victorian villa, Victorian terrace, 1960s block and Postwar infill. A service duct runs between the kitchen and the bathroom stacked above it, and access to that duct stays open whatever the layout does. The carry is the constraint. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

Roads climb sharply with tight bends and limited turning space, so a long van has to plan the route in and out. Front approaches are frequently down steps to a lower entrance, and the combination of gradient and steps rules out trolleys. Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. A laminate run comes out easier than stone goes in.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning. Split-level layouts mean the kitchen floor and the adjoining room floor are different heights, so set the datum in the kitchen itself and never carry a level through from the hall.

One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Levels get corrected before the new top is measured. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Notice goes out before the crew is booked. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it.

Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The external wall is a concrete panel with a modest window, so the run under it sits in a shallow reveal with a hard cill. Deck access or a single narrow staircase with tight half-landings means long pieces get walked up on edge, and the landing turn is checked before we commit. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. The balcony door frequently opens off the kitchen, which puts a threshold, a draught and a well-used route through one end of the run. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Front doors off the deck open into a lobby barely wider than the door itself, and the turn out of it is a right angle. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it.