Kitchen worktops in Greenwich Peninsula

Yes. Almost entirely developer-fitted open-plan kitchens in apartments — one wall run plus an island or peninsula facing the living space, typically 2.6m to 3.4m, in thin laminate or budget composite that owners replace at ten to fifteen years. Layouts repeat floor to floor, so one template often covers several flats in the same block. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

2000s Millennium Village housing, 2010s-2020s high-rise apartments and riverside warehouse conversion. The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. Where a column, downstand or steel plate lands in the run, the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it instead of being stopped short and filled. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Everything goes through a loading bay and a goods lift on a booked slot, with floor and lift protection and a concierge who wants notice; the lift car dimension, not the front door, decides maximum slab length. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Measure the service lift diagonal first — a 3m piece that won't stand up in the car has to be jointed, and that joint has to land somewhere defensible.

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. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Carcasses have to be sound first. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day. 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. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. 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.