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. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1950s modernist slab and point block, Interwar cottage estate and Roehampton village Georgian and Victorian. Walls are dense block or in-situ concrete with a bonded plaster, so the bottom course of tiles brings plaster with it when the old top comes off. The carry is the constraint. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

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. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. 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.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.