Kitchen worktops in Newington Green

Yes. Very early terraces around the green with small original rooms and heavy constraints, plus Victorian houses split into flats, so most kitchens are 2.4-3m single runs. The larger whole houses on the surrounding streets get a modest rear extension with an L and a short peninsula rather than an island. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

seventeenth-century terrace, Georgian terrace, Victorian terrace and post-war estate. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

The green is bounded by bus routes with restricted loading and the surrounding streets are permit-only with filtered junctions closing several approaches. The oldest terraces are listed, with very narrow original doors and steep straight stairs behind them. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. The oldest houses have doorways well under standard width, so measure the door leaf and the frame rebate rather than the nominal opening before deciding a piece will go in.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.