Kitchen worktops in Stepney Green

Yes. The Georgian houses put the kitchen in the lower ground or rear ground floor with low ceilings, thick masonry and a run of around 3m broken by a chimney breast. Victorian mansion flats have a small original kitchen with a deep window reveal and a larder recess that people keep and shelve out. 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. Where a bay suspension or a permit is needed, that is a real cost and it goes on the quote instead of appearing later. It is one line among the others, and it is honest.

Georgian merchant house, late-Victorian mansion dwelling and post-war infill block. Listing and conservation conditions apply to a good number of these, which constrains what can be altered around the kitchen rather than what goes on top of the units. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The bench proves it before the van moves.

Several of the older houses are listed or in a conservation area, so scaffolding, hoisting and any external route need agreeing in advance. Front steps up to a raised entrance and a narrow original hallway mean a slab has to come in on edge and turn at the stair foot. Where nothing will go up the stairs or into the lift, the only route left is through an opening, and that is a lifting operation rather than a carry. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. Once the cut-outs are machined there is no going back on it.

Worktop templating, worktop design & quotation and worktop fabrication, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. Old masonry walls bow and the chimney breast is never plumb, so template on the finished plaster and expect deep scribes on both ends of the run.

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 nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Every join sits over a gable. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Radiused, polished, and clear of the joins. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. 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.