Kitchen worktops in Morden

Yes. The interwar semis built after the Northern line arrived have small square rear kitchens, typically 2.6m by 2.6m, that get an L-shaped run and a slim breakfast bar rather than an island. Flats above and around the town centre keep original galley layouts and are usually straight top replacements. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. Two hours is the realistic figure.

1930s Underground-extension semi, Interwar cottage estate house and 1960s town-centre block. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. The carry is the constraint. That is the shape of the day.

Around the station and the shopping parade the traffic and bus stands make standing time short, but the residential estates behind are uncontrolled and easy to park in. Older blocks have narrow communal stairs with a tight quarter turn at each landing. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. These small kitchens leave no tolerance — an L that is 15mm long cannot be trimmed on site without moving a fixed appliance, so template both legs to the wall rather than off the cabinets.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.