Kitchen worktops in Stepney

Yes. Estate flats have kitchens designed as separate rooms, typically 2.2m to 2.8m in an L with the boiler cupboard eating one corner and no room for a peninsula. Where houses have been reconfigured the kitchen moves to the rear with a modest island of around 1.8m. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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.

large post-war estate, 1970s low-rise deck-access housing, surviving Victorian terrace and recent estate-renewal block. Post-war terraces have a short straight hall to the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than the houses they replaced. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Vehicle access is through estate roads with speed tables, resident-only bays and bollarded pedestrian links, so a route survey saves a long carry. Low-rise deck housing means walking the slab along a raised walkway with a step up at the door threshold. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. 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 strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, 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. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Original estate kitchens are frequently out of square where partitions were built off timber studs, so scribes matter more here than anywhere else in the borough.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Plotted, not estimated. 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 a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. A template booked hopefully around another trade is the commonest cause of a wasted visit. 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.