Kitchen worktops in Riddlesdown

Yes. Inter-war stock strung along the ridge, mostly semis with a rear kitchen extended by 2-3m to make a kitchen-diner with a peninsula and garden doors. Wall runs of about 3.6m are typical and full islands are rare because the rooms are long rather than wide. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

1930s semi, 1930s detached, post-war infill and chalet bungalow. The extension is commonly a flat-roofed addition of the seventies or eighties with a shallower floor build-up, so the two halves of the room do not sit at one level. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints.

Narrow hillside roads with parking on both sides and short steep drives, plus the railway cutting means several streets are dead ends with no turning space for a long van. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, 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 carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Old top out Tuesday, tenant in on Friday. Dead-end hillside roads mean reversing a loaded van out, so we take the smaller vehicle here and make two trips rather than one.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. 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. The wall has not moved, and neither has the problem. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement.

The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. A side passage and a back door mean the stone rarely has to come through the house, which changes the job more than most people expect. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Access is checked against the longest piece first.

Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Rear windows are wide and low with a deep tiled cill, and that cill decides how tall the upstand behind the sink can be. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected.