Kitchen worktops in Hayes End

Yes. Semis with knocked-through kitchen-diners giving a 4m back run plus a peninsula, and side extensions where the plot is wide enough to make room for a proper island. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

Interwar semi, 1930s detached and postwar infill. Ceilings run to about two point four metres, so wall units, a splashback and an extractor are all competing for the same short band of wall. 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. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

The Uxbridge Road is the bottleneck, but the side roads have wide drives and verges and a van can sit outside the property all day without trouble. 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. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after.

Worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it. The side extensions widen the room enough for an island, but the existing ceiling joists were never sized for a downdraught extractor run so check before you commit to a hob cut-out.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A seam under a rooflight gets the extra minutes. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Where the side return has been filled in, one side of the new room is old brick and the other is new blockwork, and the two do not behave alike. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Every unit gets a level on it before a piece lands.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.