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. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

seventeenth-century terrace, Georgian terrace, Victorian terrace and post-war estate. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

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. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after.

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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. 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.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit where permission only stretches to one. 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.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. 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. It adds an hour or two to the day, and that time sits in the schedule rather than being taken out of the finishing. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Every flight adds a set of handling movements, and handling is where stone gets damaged, so a fourth-floor walk-up is priced by the flight rather than by the metre. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.