Kitchen worktops in North Sheen

Yes. Long Edwardian and interwar terraced streets with smaller rooms than neighbouring Kew - kitchens run 2.4m to 3m with a return under the window, and where an extension has been done it is usually a simple 2.5m rear infill rather than a full side return. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

Edwardian terrace, interwar terrace, 1930s semi and modern flats. The kitchen sits at the rear with a door to the garden and a window over the sink, so the useful run is broken into two short lengths. 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. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since.

Terraced roads with permit parking and no off-street standing, cars parked tight to both kerbs, and shallow front gardens giving barely enough space to swing a slab from the pavement to the front door. Boxed-in pipework running along the skirting looks harmless until a loaded trolley has to pass it. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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. Narrow halls with a stair straight off the door mean measuring the diagonal at the newel post before deciding piece lengths.

The wall between the original room and the return usually carries a steel, and the plaster line above it steps, so anything full height behind the run is measured separately from the top. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Joins move onto the gables this time round. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A rolling programme loses a flat to one missing key. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. These were built in short runs of six or eight houses, so the party walls are solid brick and the rear elevation is a straight line with no outriggers. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. What the last fitter did to the wall shows up on strip-out.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A single long run down one side puts every cut-out in one piece, so the sink, the hob and any drainer grooves all take material out of the same length. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw.

Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A galley run down a side-return extension usually measures longer than a slab will give in one length, so a join is designed in from the start rather than discovered. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Yield is worked out fresh for the new material.