Kitchen worktops in Kennington

Yes. Georgian and early Victorian houses have their kitchens at lower-ground level in what were service rooms, so runs follow the original room proportions with a small island or a central table rather than a big open plan. Estate flats nearby have compact separate kitchens with fixed service positions. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The waste leaves with us, so the van has to still be there.

Georgian terrace, Early Victorian terrace, Interwar and postwar estate block and Mansion flat. Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Nothing goes back on carcasses the building has pulled out of square.

Much of the Georgian stock is listed or in a conservation area with a lower-ground entrance down railed area steps that turn sharply at the bottom. Parking is permit-controlled and the northern edge falls close to the congestion charge boundary, so charges need checking by street. A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Lower-ground rooms in this stock are damp-prone and rarely flat, so the run needs packing and the floor level checked at both ends before any long piece is cut.

A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A thinner top drops the run against the tiles. 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. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Sockets set into the end panel keep the top clear, but they sit below the stone and are cut into the panel by the fitter rather than machined into the worktop. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Breakfast bars get the steel they never had.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. 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. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn.