Kitchen worktops in North Kensington

Yes. A high proportion of the stock is flats formed out of Victorian terraces or purpose-built estate blocks, so the typical job is a single-run replacement of 2.2-3.0m with a small return, keeping the existing sink and hob positions. Where whole houses survive intact the kitchen sits in a back addition with a step down into it, which puts a level change right where the worktop meets the wall. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. We would rather ask than guess.

Victorian terrace in multiple occupation, postwar council estate, 1960s slab block and recent housing association infill. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Estate deliveries need the block entry code and often a lift key from the caretaker, and several blocks have a stepped podium between the parking and the entrance door. On the terraced streets the bays are resident-permit with short loading tolerance, so plan a two-vehicle approach: van in, unload, van out. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Where a single building holds several small kitchens, the work arrives as one job rather than four, and it should be cut off the same slab run so the batches genuinely match. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Levels are the recurring problem in the back additions - the floor drops away from the house so the base units are packed and the worktop is the only thing hiding it.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. One visit, our own installers. 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.