Kitchen worktops in Lea Bridge

Yes. Interwar semis with a rear kitchen commonly knocked into the dining room to make an L-shaped kitchen-diner of about 4m, plus estate flats with standard galleys. Side returns are narrow here, so peninsulas come up far more often than islands. 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. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

interwar semi, post-war estate, Victorian terrace and new-build apartment. The chimney breast in the corner has usually been left in place, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends. The sill height over the sink is settled on site, because there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

Lea Bridge Road is a wide fast corridor with bus lanes and limited stopping, but the residential streets behind have driveways and side gates on the semis, which makes the carry one of the easiest in the borough. Estate blocks still need lift access arranged in advance. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us. On the interwar semis the side gate and a level path to the back door is the best route anywhere in Hackney, so use it and keep the tops in longer pieces.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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 join is the last thing finished. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.