Kitchen worktops in Putney Heath

Yes. Postwar blocks around the heath have separate kitchens of a fixed size with a sink under the window and a hatch to the dining area, and the usual work is a like-for-like top with matching upstands. The detached houses backing onto the heath take larger open-plan schemes with an island. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. Nothing goes out until the route back to the van is clear.

Interwar detached, 1950s and 60s purpose-built block and Postwar estate housing. A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Post-war terraces are typically blockwork or early lightweight block with a hard render coat, and the kitchen has usually been reconfigured at least once, leaving patched areas of newer plaster next to original render that sit at different depths. The wall gets made good first or the gap shows.

The blocks are set in landscaped grounds with parking courts some distance from the entrances, so there is a long paved carry before you reach any lift or stair. Lifts in these blocks are small passenger cars that will not take a full slab upright. A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. Hatch openings between kitchen and dining room mean the worktop often has to be finished on two faces and polished on the exposed edge inside the opening.

The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. A boiler hangs on the wall above the run in most of these, and its pipework drops exactly where a splashback wants to go. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A sound carcass takes stone; a soft one gets replaced first.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate.

If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. 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. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be.