Kitchen worktops in Hyde Park Estate

Yes. The Tyburnia stucco houses have basement or lower-ground kitchens, while the post-war blocks on the estate have generously sized but plain kitchens with a straight 3m run and a separate utility cupboard. Mews houses squeeze a galley into the old carriage floor with a 2.2m run and a fold-out table. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. A templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

stucco terrace, 1960s estate block and mews house. Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Blocks have underground parking with a 2m height barrier and a residents' lift, so the slab either comes down the ramp on a low-loader or gets walked from the street. Mews are cobbled and narrow with residents parked nose-in and no turning space. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. 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 templating and 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 template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Cobbled mews destroy trolley wheels and shake a slab - carry across the cobbles by hand rather than wheeling it, every time.

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 existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.