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. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The load plan follows from it.

1840s-1860s stucco-fronted townhouse, communal garden square terrace, Victorian coach-house mews and Edwardian mansion flat. These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

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. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. 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.

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. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.