Worktop replacement in Limehouse

Yes. Limehouse is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Where the household has used up the visitor permits it gets for the year, the remaining options are a suspension or a paid bay and both belong on the quote. 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. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. The room itself is the easy part: walls are plumb, corners are square and the floor is flat, so scribes are minimal and joins can be tight. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up.

Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. 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. A laminate run comes out easier than stone goes in. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop installation. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. The annexe top goes in on the same day. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Booked at short notice, because the notice is short.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Level the units first, measure the shape second. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Found at template, not on fit day. Book the service lift, loading bay and concierge access for the full day, and confirm the building's permitted working hours in writing. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. The surface changes and the kitchen stays the one they know.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. 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. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. 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. A laminate top was scribed thin at the back to swallow it, and stone cannot be shaved down the same way. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. Open-plan living makes the kitchen furniture rather than utility, so the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.