Kitchen worktops in South Hampstead

Yes. Large villas divided into two or three flats, which leaves kitchens in odd positions such as a converted bedroom, a rear return or an extended half-landing, and rarely gives you two long parallel walls. Runs sit at 2.4-3m with a lot of fitted corner work around bay windows and blocked fireplace openings. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. 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 villa conversion, red-brick mansion block and Edwardian terrace. These kitchens are big rooms with long perimeter runs and an island, so level has to hold across the whole floor rather than along one wall. Long perimeter runs and an island mean level has to hold across the whole room, so the templater sets a single datum and works every run and the island off it rather than levelling each wall in isolation. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Permit bays fill early and many villas sit back behind long front paths, so the carry is 15-25 metres before you even reach the door. No lifts in the conversions, and the original staircases are generous in width but have winders at the 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. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. Winder stairs are worse than narrow ones for slab work because the effective diagonal shrinks at the turn, so size pieces off the tightest tread rather than the landing.

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. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come. 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.