Kitchen worktops in Greenford

Yes. 1930s semis with the original kitchen and larder opened into the dining room, giving a 4m to 5m L with a peninsula, and the attached garage frequently converted into a utility with a matching short run. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. Two hours is the realistic figure.

1930s Metroland semi, postwar estate house, 1960s block and industrial-fringe new-build. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Western Avenue makes delivery easy and the residential roads are wide with drives. The Greenford roundabout and Ruislip Road are the congestion points. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. The gas run and meter box sit on the kitchen flank wall in these semis, so the units get packed off the wall and the top has to be templated to that packed line.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. One datum for the whole room. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.