Kitchen worktops in Plashet

Yes. The larger houses on the park side have generous rear kitchens of 3m to 3.5m with a separate utility in the old scullery, and the smaller terraces keep a conventional galley. A lot of homes here run big weekly cooking loads, so a durable surface and a deep sink matter more than a delicate finish. 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.

Edwardian terrace, large bay-fronted Victorian house and converted flat. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Streets are permit-controlled with heavy residential parking pressure, and the school run times create genuine congestion on the through roads, so a mid-morning slot is best. Front paths are short and level, hallways are wide enough on the larger houses to bring in a 3m piece on edge. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Utility rooms carved out of old sculleries usually need a second smaller top, and it is worth cutting it from the same slab for a match.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. 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. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.