Kitchen worktops in South Kensington

Yes. The Thurloe and Onslow estate houses run to five or six storeys with a full basement, and the kitchen sits at basement level under the front pavement vault, often with a light well at the front and a dining room behind. Runs of 3.6m plus a substantial island are common, and stone is frequently specified as a full slab splashback behind the range because there is no window on that wall. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. It sits in the fitting line as time on site rather than as anything to do with the stone. Nothing here is added after the fact.

1840s-50s stucco crescent and terrace, Italianate garden square house, Victorian mansion block and embassy-scale townhouse. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. That is the shape of the day.

Most of it is listed or in conservation area with pavement vaults, so you cannot stack slabs on the flags outside without checking the vault below, and the front area steps down to the basement door are the usual route in. Cromwell Road and the museum roads are heavily restricted, and the residents' bays fill early, so an early morning slot is worth having. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Under-pavement vaults and cellar lids look solid and are not - never set an A-frame down on the flags in front of these houses without seeing what is underneath.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. This is the item most often left out of a cheaper quote, and it comes back as a variation once the templater has been. Priced as fabrication, not as area. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Nothing is payable until we template, so a quote can sit while consents and decisions catch up. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.