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. 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.

Cubitt stucco terrace conversion, 1950s Churchill Gardens block and 1970s Lillington Gardens brick estate. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

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. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating 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 template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 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. Carcasses have to be sound first. 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. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.