Kitchen worktops in Harlesden

Yes. Dense Victorian terraces with the kitchen in a narrow back addition, and a large share of the stock is split into flats, so the job is often a 2.4m to 3m single run squeezed into a converted rear room with the sink under the original sash. Where a house is still whole, the side return infill is the standard upgrade and turns the kitchen into an L with a small peninsula. 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. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

Victorian bay-fronted terrace, Edwardian terrace and post-war council block. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

No driveways to speak of, red route and bus lane restrictions on the main roads, and controlled parking on almost every side street, so a dispensation or a very early start is usually needed to get the van close enough for a hall carry. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. Back-addition kitchens are rarely square to the main house, so expect a taper across a 3m run and template the whole piece as one rather than assuming a right angle at the return.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. 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.