Kitchen worktops in Kew

Yes. Neat Victorian and Edwardian terraces where the standard project is a modest side-return infill giving a 3.2m run plus a 1.5m return, with a rooflight over the sink; kitchens stay lighter and smaller in scale here than in the big Sheen semis, and islands are the exception. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.

Georgian house on the Green, Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace and 1930s semi. The addition is a brick narrower than the house it hangs off, which leaves a stub of the original rear wall standing square to the run at the doorway end. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

Conservation area covering most of the streets, so skips and scaffolding are consented and frontages are protected; parking is permit-controlled all day and the level crossing and one-way loops make the approach slow. The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

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. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Conservation rules keep the extensions narrow, so the run ends up long and thin - watch the overhang at the return where the wall kicks out.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Packing goes under the units, not under the stone. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A locked door costs the day, not an hour. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. The lean-to roof drains into a valley gutter against the addition next door, and a long leak there shows at the head of the kitchen wall rather than on the ceiling. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.