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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Victorian terrace converted to flats, 1960s-70s local authority block, stucco terrace south of the Westway and warehouse and studio conversion. Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

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. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Shared-house tops take a decade of hard use. 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.

Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. What passed for a fit in chipboard will not pass in stone. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Wear is what the next inventory records. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

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. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. There is usually a step down into the back addition, so the kitchen floor and the hall floor are not the same level and neither of them is flat. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Nothing is cut in the room if the shop could do it.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The way out is measured with the way in.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The return is offered up last.