Kitchen worktops in Queenhithe

Yes. North bank riverside flats are built with the kitchen inboard against the core so the glazing stays clear, giving a 3-3.4m run and a peninsula that separates cooking from the living space. Original tops from the 1980s and 90s development wave are now well past their life, so replacement onto existing units - matching a moulded sink recess or an old inset hob cut-out - is the common request. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

riverside apartment block, 1980s-90s development on the north bank, warehouse-style conversion and modern flat above commercial floors. These buildings have firm rules about what can be propped open, left in a lobby or carried through the residents entrance. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Carried once, and carried properly.

Upper Thames Street runs below and alongside as a fast dual carriageway with no stopping whatsoever, so access is via the raised riverside walk and a building's own service entrance off a side street. The walk from the nearest permitted stopping point to the flat door can be long and partly on a raised deck with steps, so a route survey matters more than the lift dimensions. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. The route is protected once and then used four times.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. Old inset hob and sink cut-outs never match modern appliance dimensions, so confirm the new appliances before templating or you will be cutting an oversized hole to hide an old one.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Overhangs are measured off the finished carcass. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The sill was always low. Nobody had to care until now. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call. 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.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The kitchen usually sits along the internal spine of the plan with the glazing at the far end, so the run itself has no window and no daylight on it. If the diagonal is short we either split the run with a planned join or, on lower floors, carry up the stairwell, which needs the half-landing turn checking as well. Old floors get packed, not argued with.

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. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. These flats are built with a floating floor over a concrete slab for acoustic reasons, and it deflects slightly under the weight of a stone island. The lift is measured before the piece is loaded, and once inside the flat the fitting is quick by comparison. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them.