Kitchen worktops in Ladbroke Grove

Yes. The road splits at the Westway: south of it you are working in whole-house stucco with lower ground kitchens, north of it the same terraces are cut into two and three flats and the kitchen is a converted back bedroom or a corner of a through-lounge. Conversion flats take an L-shape of roughly 2.4m by 1.6m with a peninsula, and the chimney breast is almost always still in place dictating where the joint falls. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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 terrace converted to flats, 1960s-70s local authority block, stucco terrace south of the Westway and warehouse and studio conversion. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

Ladbroke Grove itself is a red route in stretches with a bus lane, so unloading happens on the side streets and the walk-in is longer than the drive. Upper-floor conversion flats have no lift and a communal stair with a tight quarter turn at each half-landing, which is the real limit on piece size here rather than the door width. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Plan a joint you can live with rather than fight the communal stair - a well-placed mitre behind the hob beats a heroic single piece that scrapes the landing plaster.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.