Kitchen worktops in Streatham

Yes. Edwardian terraces off the high road take rear extensions of moderate depth, producing an L-shaped kitchen with a peninsula rather than the wide island layouts found further west. The long run of flats above the shops on the high road are single-galley kitchens where a top and upstands is the whole scope. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb.

Edwardian terrace, Victorian terrace, Above-shop flat, 1930s semi and Postwar block. A flat over a shop is reached by a separate street door and a straight steep stair, and that stair is the whole access question. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. Chipboard that has taken water will not take stone.

The high road is a red route with bus lanes and constant traffic, and above-shop flats are reached through a shared door and a straight steep stair with no landing to rest on. Residential side streets are permit-controlled but usually workable outside peak hours. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. 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. A laminate run comes out easier than stone goes in.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A deposit deduction rarely covers a new top. Above-shop kitchens here sit on old timber floors that slope towards the front of the building, so level off the units and pack rather than following the floor.

Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Disposal is named, not assumed. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The stair from the street is narrow with a tight turn at the top, which caps piece length well below anything the run itself needs. 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. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Open-tread and cantilevered stairs give nothing to lean a piece against, so the whole weight stays on the crew for the full length of the flight. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. Old pieces are carried out before new ones are carried in.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The last piece in has the least tolerance left.