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. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. 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. The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on.

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. Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. Both movements are planned as one.

Worktop replacement and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. 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.

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. 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. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Packing the carcasses is part of the replacement. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

A landlord with several similar flats usually wants one specification repeated, so the material, the edge detail and the upstand height are recorded and reused rather than rechosen each time. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units stay, so the flat is usable that evening. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Party wall settlement pulls the floor down at one side of the room, so a long run reads level at one end and not at the other. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Sockets cut in the shop, not on site.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces.