Kitchen worktops in Sudbury Hill

Yes. Mixed older villas and interwar semis on the slope, where kitchens are commonly extended sideways into a garage rather than out into the garden because plots are narrow and steep. That produces an L-shaped kitchen with a step or a threshold in the middle of the floor and a shorter main run than the flat districts nearby. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Edwardian villa, 1930s semi and 1970s townhouse. Rooms are formally proportioned with deep reveals and shutter boxes, so runs under windows are templated to what is actually there. The island is templated for its overhang, its support and the position of the hob or sink within it, with sockets and any pop-up left where they will genuinely be. Recorded as it is, not as it was drawn.

The hill is the defining feature: sloping and stepped driveways, retaining walls and front doors above street level, with parking further from the door than the map suggests. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop replacement, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One visit, done properly. Where a garage has been absorbed, the floor slab is usually lower than the house, so verify the finished unit height on both sides before cutting a continuous top.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.