Kitchen worktops in Shepherd's Bush

Yes. Conversion flats are the majority job here - a kitchen carved out of a back room or a through-lounge corner, 2.2-3m of run, often with the washing machine and boiler both competing for the same bay. Landlord refurbishments make up a lot of the volume, so specification runs to hard-wearing quartz in a single colour, square edges and matching upstands rather than islands. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. 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. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

Victorian terrace converted to flats, shop with flats over on Uxbridge Road, postwar estate block and recent buy-to-let conversion. A conversion takes kitchen waste to a stack added to the outside of the building, which fixes the sink position long before anyone draws a layout. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.

Uxbridge Road and the Green are bus-heavy with loading bans through the day, and the market end has stalls on the carriageway, so unloading is on the terraced side streets. Multiple flats behind one street door means a communal hall full of bikes and bins, and the stairs are typically 850-900mm wide with a half-landing turn. Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms. Clear the communal hall of bikes before the slab arrives - on these conversions the obstruction is usually other people's belongings, not the building.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Scribed one piece at a time. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Nothing about it is a discovery on fitting day. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Heights that have to match are cut to match. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Floors are the original joists with a later acoustic layer laid over them, and that layer is not flat where it meets the doorways. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. One datum for every run in the room.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. What is behind the old top decides the day.