Kitchen worktops in Sloane Square

Yes. Estate leasehold flats dominate and the kitchens are original service positions - often a narrow room of 2.2-2.8m against an external wall with a light well window, and a separate utility cupboard. Landlord consent shapes the job more than the room does, so most work is like-for-like surface replacement with new upstands rather than a re-plan. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Cadogan Estate red-brick and terracotta mansion block, late Victorian townhouse, Georgian survivor terrace and estate-managed leasehold flat. Edwardian terraces are wider and taller than the Victorian houses next to them, so the kitchen usually takes a full-width rear room rather than a narrow outrigger. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Porters, sign-in books, lift protection and a works-hours window that typically runs weekday daytime only, with no weekend working permitted under the lease. Sloane Street and the square itself have short loading windows and heavy enforcement, so unloading is normally into the block's side or rear service door on a timed slot. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating, 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Landlord consent and the lease decide what you are allowed to change, so confirm it is a straight replacement before templating anything that moves a service.

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. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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 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. The templater needs the sink, tap and hob on site, and a Belfast sink installed at its final height. No stone is cut from a plan. 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.