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. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

1930s Metroland semi, postwar estate house, 1960s block and industrial-fringe new-build. The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. That is the shape of the day.

Western Avenue makes delivery easy and the residential roads are wide with drives. The Greenford roundabout and Ruislip Road are the congestion points. A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. 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.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.