Kitchen worktops in Notting Hill

Yes. The Ladbroke Estate houses put the kitchen on the lower ground floor at the back, usually knocked through into a rear extension that runs out under the communal garden wall, so you get a 3.2-4m wall run plus an island of 2.4m or more. Mews conversions behind the main terraces are the opposite job entirely: a single galley run of 2.6-3.2m against one wall with a hob undercut and no room for a return. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

1840s-1860s stucco-fronted townhouse, communal garden square terrace, Victorian coach-house mews and Edwardian mansion flat. The party wall is the straightest surface in the house and everything else has moved away from it over a century. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Almost the whole area is conservation area with single yellow and RBKC residents' bays, so a slab van gets a loading window rather than a parking space. Most houses are entered either up a raised front step or down external area steps into the lightwell, and that bottom landing is where slabs get stuck - it is often under 900mm deep with a right-angle turn straight into the kitchen door. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. One visit, done properly. Measure the turn at the foot of the area steps before you cut anything, because a 3m piece that clears the stair will still refuse the 90-degree swing at the bottom.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Changes cost a piece, not a tweak. 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.