Kitchen worktops in Notting Dale

Yes. Cottage terraces around the Latimer Road end have narrow rear kitchens, typically 2.1-2.6m of run against the party wall with the back door interrupting it, and a lot of them have never been extended. Estate flats run smaller again - a single 1.8-2.4m run with a fitted appliance housing at one end and no space for an island of any kind. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

late Victorian workers' cottage terrace, postwar low-rise estate, 1970s deck-access block and small industrial and studio conversion. Cottage terraces have no hall to speak of and the front door opens almost straight into the room, which makes the carry easier and the protection harder. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Estate blocks have controlled entry, communal bin stores at the base of the stair and lifts that are only wide enough for a slab stood on edge if it goes in diagonally, so lift internal dimensions need checking at template not on the day. Street parking is permit-controlled with narrow carriageways where a Luton parked kerbside blocks the road, so a banksman is worth having. 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. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. Small runs but awkward buildings - the time here goes into the carry and the lift, not the cutting.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. 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.