Kitchen worktops in Rush Green

Yes. Uniform inter-war semis and terraces on the Dagenham border where kitchens are compact and largely unaltered, so a lot of the work is a practical refresh: new tops, new sink, matching upstands, keeping the existing units. Where a rear extension has gone in, it is usually a shallow one adding a metre and moving the sink to the new back wall. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

1930s semi, 1930s terrace and post-war infill. The classic arrangement is the original back room with a later extension bolted onto it, so the kitchen is two ages of building in one room. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Straightforward suburban streets with dropped kerbs on many houses and a shared side passage between semi pairs, though the main roads through here carry hospital traffic and are not somewhere to unload. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Shared side passages between semi pairs are legally the neighbour's half as well, so we ask before wheeling a slab down one.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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 someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Decided before fabrication, not after. 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.