Kitchen worktops in Green Street

Yes. Residential kitchens above the retail parade are long and narrow, fitted along one wall for 2.5m or so, with limited natural light and the flat's only stair coming up beside them. Behind the parade the terraces have conventional rear kitchens serving large families. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

flat over shop, Edwardian terrace and market-area mixed-use building. The structure below is commercial, so the floor is often timber over a shop ceiling and the load path under an island is worth thinking about. 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.

The shopping street is busy from morning to evening with loading bans and enforcement cameras, so realistically it is an early start or a bank holiday. Access to the flats is through a shared side door between shopfronts, up a single narrow flight with a 90-degree turn, so nothing over about 2.2m gets up in one piece. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A second kitchen or a kitchenette in an annexe is a small job with the same fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines as a large one. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order. Above-shop flats mean carrying stone past a live business, so boards down and a planned route matter more than the fit itself.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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 same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.