Kitchen worktops in Stratford

Yes. New apartment kitchens dominate and are open-plan against a wall of the living space, 2.6m to 3.2m of run with integrated appliances and a slim breakfast bar; owners replace the developer laminate top for stone within a few years. The older terraces to the west still have back-addition galley kitchens of around 2.4m. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

Victorian terrace, 1960s-70s estate and 2012 onwards high-rise apartment. Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Around the centre almost everything is a managed development with basement loading bays, booked goods lifts and marshalled service yards, and events at the nearby venues bring road closures and event-day parking restrictions. The Victorian streets are CPZ-controlled with narrow bays and no forecourt. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. The recurring job is stripping out a builder-spec top in an occupied new flat, so dust control and a same-day sink swap matter as much as the stone.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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 someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after. 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.