Kitchen worktops in Surbiton

Yes. Two clear streams: 1930s semis with a rear kitchen extended to a 3.6m run and a peninsula, and Art Deco and interwar mansion flats with original galley kitchens roughly 2m by 3m where the units stay and the tops, upstands and sink are renewed. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The day is built around that window.

Victorian villa, Edwardian terrace, 1930s Art Deco mansion block and 1930s semi. The original kitchen was a small service room, so what is there now is a knock-through and the junction between the two floors is rarely level. This is the most managed day we do. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Wide tree-lined roads with driveways on the semis, but the mansion blocks have communal entrances, half-landings and small lifts, plus resident-only parking courts with no visitor bays. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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 replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Interwar flats have solid but uneven screed floors and out-of-square walls, so a template beats a drawing every time here.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. Found at template, not on fit day. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. 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.