Kitchen worktops in Longthornton

Yes. Interwar semis on the Streatham fringe with rear kitchens that get modest three or four metre extensions rather than full-width rears, keeping an L-shaped run and a small dining area. Original serving hatches and pantry recesses are usually absorbed into the new layout. Some drives are wide enough for the van and too short for the tail lift, because the tail lift needs its own clear metre behind the vehicle. 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.

1930s semi, Interwar terrace and Postwar infill flat. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Same units, straighter line, better surface.

Parking is unrestricted on most roads and driveways are common, though the streets are narrower here than in the Morden suburbs and get tight when both sides are parked. Side gates are the usual squeeze at around 750mm. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Protection goes down along it first.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. Extensions of this vintage often meet the original wall with a stepped floor level, so check whether the run crosses that threshold before assuming one continuous height.

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. 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. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable. 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.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The consumer unit and the meter often sit high on the wall at one end of the kitchen, and neither of them is going to move to suit a run of stone. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. 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. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. Where the drive falls away from the house the trolley wants to run, and where it climbs the same load has to be pushed the whole way up. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The old tops have to go somewhere as well.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Every piece is staged to it before fitting starts.

How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.