Kitchen worktops in Summerstown

Yes. Older terraces along the Wandle corridor have small rear kitchens that stay galley-shaped, while the recent apartment schemes on the former stadium and industrial land are open-plan with a peninsula and an appliance tower. The two require completely different approaches on the same street. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. A timed bay does not cover a strip-out and a fit.

Victorian terrace, Interwar terrace and 2020s new-build apartment. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.

Industrial estates and the river restrict the road network, and lorry traffic on Garratt Lane and Plough Lane makes stopping difficult at peak times. The new blocks have booked loading and a service lift; the old terraces have on-street permit bays only. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.

Worktop installation 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. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. New-build peninsulas here are fixed to a plasterboard-clad frame rather than solid cabinets, so the overhang needs brackets or a sub-frame rather than relying on the carcass.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Breakfast bars get the steel they never had. Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One person is responsible for the door that morning. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. The joint where a peninsula meets the main run wants a gable directly under it, and where the units do not offer one, steel goes in to carry that joint instead. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. The new pieces are nested, not traced off the old ones.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. A twenty-year-old run is replaced to its own shape.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old stone is heavier going out than it looked coming in.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run.