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. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. 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 tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

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. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

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. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. 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.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. 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. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.