Kitchen worktops in Ravenscourt Park

Yes. Big terraces around the park take double side-return extensions with kitchen islands of 3m and a separate utility, and a lot of them go for full-height stone splashbacks behind a range because the rear wall is glazed and the cooking wall is the only solid one. The villa conversions are the counterpoint - first-floor flats with a galley of 2.4-3m squeezed into a former bedroom and a joist run that will not take much extra load. 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. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.

large Victorian terrace and semi, Edwardian villa, purpose-built interwar flats and conversion flat in a former villa. A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. The old island top is frequently sitting on units that were never fixed down, which is fine for laminate and not for stone. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Streets are wide with plane trees and permit bays, but the District line viaduct and the park perimeter cut through the grid so approach routes are longer than the map suggests. Conversion flats have a shared front door, a straight run of stairs and a landing that is often under 1m wide, which is the practical piece-length ceiling. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop replacement, 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. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. In first-floor conversions check the joists before you fit 30mm granite on a long island - old timber floors here flex enough to open a joint.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Machined to the real line. 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.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.