Worktop installation in Olympia

Yes. Olympia is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Streets near a ground or a venue have restrictions that come and go with the fixture list rather than with the time of day. 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. The day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Check whether there is a show on before you book the day, because an exhibition closure can put you 400m from the front door with a full A-frame.

Event days at the exhibition centre bring road closures, traffic management and full parking suspensions on the surrounding streets, so check the event calendar before booking a fit. Otherwise the streets are ordinary CPZ terraces with front paths and steps, and the usual hallway-and-newel problem. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.