Kitchen worktops in Lewisham

Yes. Town-centre stock splits between Victorian terraces off the high street with back-addition galleys and a growing number of tower flats with open-plan kitchen-living rooms and a peninsula. The new-build runs are short and precise; the Victorian ones are long, narrow and out of square. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

Victorian terrace, 1960s council tower, 1930s mansion flats and 2010s-2020s Loampit Vale towers. The addition is one room wide, so the run is a galley with a door at one end and a window at the other and no wall long enough for anything else. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.

The gyratory, bus lanes and shopping-centre servicing make kerbside stops difficult, the new towers need a booked goods lift, and the side streets are permit-only through the day. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A void week is the entire schedule. Two completely different jobs within 400 metres of each other, establish which stock you're in before quoting the carry.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. 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. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Same footprint, different tolerances. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The gap between tenancies is the whole window. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. 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.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Suspended timber floors flex underfoot, and anything that moves beneath a unit shows up later as a lipped join. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The last piece down is the one nearest the door.