Kitchen worktops in Royal Albert Wharf

Yes. All recent stock, so kitchens are open-plan with a 2.6m to 3m run of handleless units and a compact peninsula, sized to a modern flat rather than a family house. Replacement work is mostly owners upgrading a builder-grade top or repairing a chipped composite around the sink. 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. 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.

2016 onwards apartment block and waterside townhouse. A riverside block is a managed building with a booked goods lift, a loading bay and a concierge, and all three have to line up on the same day. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

The development sits at the end of a long approach past the dock with limited through-traffic, so allow travel time but expect a clear road at the end of it. Service access is through a courtyard with bollards and a small number of shared lifts serving several cores, which means a booking and often a wait. 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. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Shared lifts across multiple cores make this a slow building to work in, so allow a longer window than the fit itself needs.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Units kept, surface changed. 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.