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. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace converted to flats, shop with flats over on Uxbridge Road, postwar estate block and recent buy-to-let conversion. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

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. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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 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. Same batch, same run, same day. Clear the communal hall of bikes before the slab arrives - on these conversions the obstruction is usually other people's belongings, not the building.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

Quartz is the sensible default in a rental: nothing to seal, nothing to maintain, and nothing an incoming tenant needs briefing on. 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.