Kitchen worktops in Raynes Park

Yes. The interwar semi is the standard unit: kitchen at the back with a small breakfast room next to it, and the usual project is knocking the two together to make an L with a peninsula facing the garden doors. Runs are typically 2.7m to 3.4m with a return of about 1.8m. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

1930s semi, Edwardian terrace and 1960s low-rise flat. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Most houses have a drive or hardstanding, which makes staging easy, but the railway bridge and the level crossings on the Kingston side determine which way a long van can approach. Side gates are usually just over 800mm, so a slab travels edge-on down the flank. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. 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 strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Units fitted, fixed and level first. 1930s houses almost always have a chimney breast or a flue in the corner of the old kitchen, so the return leg needs a notched back edge rather than a straight cut.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.