Kitchen worktops in Strawberry Hill

Yes. Comfortable interwar detached houses and older villas with square rear kitchens that get extended to a full-width family room - a 4m run, an island of 2.4m, a bank of tall units where the old back door was, and often a second sink in a utility. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

Gothic revival villa, Victorian villa, 1920s and 1930s detached and 1930s semi. A side return glazed over gives the room a second aspect and a second floor level, because the old external threshold is still under the finish. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

Quiet leafy roads with in-and-out drives and space to park on the plot, but a couple of railway-side roads narrow to single file and the level crossing holds traffic; mature front trees limit where a lorry can stop. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

Worktop installation, in that order. An annexe kitchen is often built to keep a parent independent, so worktop height and reach matter as much as the material does. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time. Big interwar houses have solid floors that fall towards the old back door, so worktop level and floor level diverge across a 4m run - shim early.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed. 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.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Support first, stone second.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Ceilings are lower here than in the terraces of fifty years earlier, so wall units and a full-height panel compete for the same band of wall. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. The building moved decades ago and the fit allows for it.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The original kitchen was a working room with a scullery and a pantry off it, so what is now one space was two or three with brick walls between them. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.