Kitchen worktops in Imperial Wharf

Yes. Entirely purpose-built apartment stock with kitchens planned as part of the living space, generally a 3-3.4m run against the service wall plus an island or peninsula of 2-2.4m, sitting over a fixed riser. The frequent job now is replacing the original 2000s granite or composite with lighter large-format quartz or sintered stone, matching existing cut-outs so the plumbing does not move. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. 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. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

2000s riverside apartment tower, podium-deck apartment block, modern townhouse and mixed-use block over a landscaped estate. A balcony door is the only other opening in the flat and it leads nowhere useful, so everything comes in through the front door. Piece size is set by the lift car, not by the slab. What the wall does is on the drawing before the saw runs.

Gated estate with a security barrier, contractor registration, a designated loading bay and a goods lift that must be booked and lined before use, plus estate rules on working hours. From the lift lobby the route to the flat is a long carpeted corridor across a podium, so floor protection is mandatory and the trolley run is significant. Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Thinner material is specified where the carry demands it.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Sintered stone and thin porcelain are the usual upgrade here, and those need a rigid transport frame and a full set of suction lifters - they do not forgive being flexed on a long corridor carry.

Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Joins move onto the gables this time round. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. No payment is due before the template. Riser panels, wall boxes and the boiler cupboard sit in fixed positions the developer will not move for a worktop. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Drainer grooves are machined flat, on a bed, never on site.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. 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. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. A join added for access is placed over a gable, never mid-span.

What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Sprinkler heads and extract ducts are coordinated into the ceiling, so an extractor over an island goes where the services already allow. We work to the internal depth of the car and the diagonal you can actually stand a piece up on with the doors closed, then nest to that, which routinely turns a two-piece kitchen into a three-piece one with an extra join over a gable. Lath and plaster is cut for, never cut into.