Kitchen worktops in Richmond

Yes. Around the Green and the town it is mostly flats and maisonettes - Georgian upper floors with kitchens squeezed into former dressing rooms, and mansion blocks with narrow galleys of 2.4m to 3m where a slimline 20mm top is chosen to keep the run feeling wider. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. 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. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

Georgian terrace, Victorian terrace, Edwardian mansion block and 1990s riverside apartments. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. The day is planned backwards from the hall. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

Conservation-area frontages with railings and steps, a strict CPZ with short-stay bays only, and a town centre that clogs at weekends; several riverside blocks flood-plan their basements, so lift access is from an upper lobby. Handrails, mirrors and a sloping ceiling panel all eat into the usable diagonal, and none of them appear on a lift specification sheet. 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. A stone top coming out whole needs the same crew as one going in.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Shared-house kitchens take heavier use from more people than a family kitchen does, and the surface gets chosen on that basis rather than on looks. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Georgian upper-floor flats have springy timber floors, so the units need levelling and packing before the top goes on or the joint opens within a month.

The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. It was there long before we were. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Whoever owns the carcasses owns that call. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. A lift out of service for the day turns a straightforward install into a stair carry, so the slot gets confirmed with whoever manages the building rather than against a calendar. 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. Timing the two carries is most of the planning.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Dust extraction indoors, or the cut happens outside.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The laying order follows the shape.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Car depth is the number that settles it wherever a piece cannot be stood upright, and most residential cars are shallower than the run they are serving. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in.