Kitchen worktops in Kingston Vale

Yes. Interwar and postwar semis with the standard rear kitchen of about 2.4m by 3.6m, most often extended into the side alley to give a single 3.6m run plus a short return, with the old back door blocked up and a new opening onto the garden. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s semi, postwar semi, 1960s terrace and modern infill. Ceilings run to about two point four metres, so wall units, a splashback and an extractor are all competing for the same short band of wall. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. The wall behind the old top has not been seen in years.

The area is squeezed between the A3 and the park gate, so getting in means timing the trunk-road traffic; once off it the streets are quiet with driveways and dropped kerbs, which makes unloading straightforward. Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The crew size follows from it.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Side-alley infills give a room barely 2.2m wide, so a run plus a peninsula is the realistic maximum and the island idea has to go.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Joins move onto the gables this time round. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. 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.

Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. 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 about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. No payment is due before the template. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Where the side return has been filled in, one side of the new room is old brick and the other is new blockwork, and the two do not behave alike. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. How old the kitchen is decides how long preparation takes.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. 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. Two loads, one space, one day.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The consumer unit and the meter tails often sit in a cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, and that cupboard has to stay reachable whatever goes in around it. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since.