Kitchen worktops in Kingston Hill

Yes. Substantial detached and semi-detached houses climbing towards the park, with big rear kitchens - 4m runs, full islands, larder cupboards and a separate utility - plus a number of interwar and postwar blocks with small original kitchens getting a simple top swap. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian detached villa, Edwardian detached, 1930s block of flats and postwar apartments. Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

A long steep main road with limited stopping, and side roads with driveways and gravel that a slab trolley sinks into; several properties sit above the road with a flight of front steps. An inward-opening door swinging back against the wall leaves less clear opening than the frame measures, and a storm porch in front of it is tighter again. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

Worktop installation, in that order. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Gravel drives and front steps mean the trolley stops at the gate, so plan a carry route and protect the front steps before anything comes off the van.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Clamps close the joint, colour match settles it. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. 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.

Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done. 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.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The old scullery is a step down from the main room and the pantry beyond it is a step down again. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Old plaster gets scribed to, never fought with.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Waterfall legs are set before the top is bonded down.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Handmade brick and lime plaster move visibly along a run, and a straight-cut back edge shows it immediately. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. These houses usually sit in their own grounds with a long approach, so the carry from van to door is longer than anything inside the building. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.