Kitchen worktops in South Bank

Yes. Predominantly apartment kitchens in managed buildings: an appliance wall plus a peninsula or a compact island, all within the developer's original layout and with no scope to move services. Stone is chosen to be seen from the living area rather than to work hard. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1980s co-operative housing, Riverside tower and Converted commercial building. The kitchen and the dining space share one room front to back, with the stair enclosure taking a bite out of one side of it. The work is all in the building, not the kitchen. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Everything moves through a service entrance with a booked goods lift, a signed-in delivery window and often a restriction on working before 9am or after 5pm. Riverside frontages have no vehicle access at all, so the loading dock is at the back of the building. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. The room is cleared for the way out as much as the way in.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. New-build kitchens are usually smaller than the plan suggests once the appliances are in, so the usable run is shorter than the drawn run. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Reorderable later, or not specified. Buildings here have strict rules on wet cutting and dust, so any on-site adjustment needs extraction and a sheeted area agreed with building management in advance.

An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. We check who is entitled to approve it. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. No money changes hands before the template. Riser panels, wall boxes and the boiler cupboard sit in fixed positions the developer will not move for a worktop. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The saw only ever sees the templated dimensions.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. 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. Old material is stacked outside rather than left along the route.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Waterfall ends are cut in sequence off the length either side of the top so the vein carries down the leg, and that sequence is gone the moment a piece has to be recut. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished.