Kitchen worktops in Pimlico

Yes. Conversion flats in the stucco terraces have small kitchens carved out of grand rooms, typically a 2.4m galley with high ceilings and a cornice cut short. The post-war estate flats have purpose-built kitchens of about 2.5m by 2m with a fitted larder - workable, but there is no island going in either. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The old tops have to go somewhere as well.

Cubitt stucco terrace conversion, 1950s Churchill Gardens block and 1970s Lillington Gardens brick estate. The flat below hears the floor more than the walls, so lifting boards to move a waste run is a conversation with a neighbour before it is a morning of work. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. The building has kept moving; the new template catches up.

Estate blocks are the constraint - low-rise sections with no lift at all, walkway access, and communal doors that must not be wedged. Street parking is permit and pay-by-phone with a lot of resident pressure, and the wider stucco streets have suspended bays for other trades most weeks. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. Post-war estate kitchens use non-standard cabinet depths and out-of-square corners from the original concrete frame - template every corner, do not assume 90 degrees.

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. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Appliance gaps are checked against the new thickness. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. 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. The room cleared before the crew arrives. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. What is behind the old splashback decides the new one.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. It sets the crew: two fitters where the route is straightforward, four where it is not. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.