Kitchen worktops in Roehampton

Yes. The postwar estate flats have small standardised kitchens, typically 2m by 3m, with services boxed at one end and a fixed sink and cooker position, so refits are straight runs with a return. The older village properties and the cottage estate houses have conventional rear kitchens with more scope for an L or a small peninsula. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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. We would rather ask than guess.

1950s modernist slab and point block, Interwar cottage estate and Roehampton village Georgian and Victorian. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. That is the shape of the day.

The slab blocks are set back from the road behind landscaping with long approach paths, controlled entry and lifts that are undersized for stone, and the upper floors make a stair carry impractical. Booked lift access and an early slot are essential. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave. In the tower and slab blocks the lift car depth is the hard limit — anything over about 2m has to be cut to fit the car, so the joint position is decided by the building, not the kitchen.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Carcasses have to be sound first. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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.

Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.