Kitchen worktops in Plumstead

Yes. Tight Victorian terraces stepping up the hill, most with a narrow back-addition kitchen, and a high proportion of flat conversions where the kitchen has been fitted into whatever room was left. Straight galley runs of 2.4m to 3.2m, wall units both sides, no island. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. 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 old tops have to go somewhere as well.

dense Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, postwar estate and 1980s infill. Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. 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. What is behind the old splashback decides the new one.

Steep hillside streets with permit parking and no driveways, plus long flights of front steps on the upper roads, the carry is usually uphill and through the house rather than round the side. A tiled hall floor takes a dropped corner badly, so boards go down over the tiles before anything comes through the door. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Handling points are marked on the crate before it is strapped.

Worktop replacement and worktop fabrication, 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Six kitchens, one slab run, one colour. Old lath-and-plaster and soft brick mean scribing to bowed walls is normal; assume the back wall is out by 15mm over 3m.

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. 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. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. A notch and a cut-out never share the same span. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Cut once, to the sheet that came back signed. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. The casing gets plotted. The steel inside it does not.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. The chimney breast is usually still standing with the opening blocked up, and the alcoves either side of it are rarely the same width as each other. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. 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. Access out counts as much as access in.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The island top is the one that may want its own slab.