Kitchen worktops in Sydenham

Yes. A long high street with Victorian terraces behind it, mostly back-addition kitchens converted into kitchen-diners, plus a good number of flat conversions with compact runs. On streets with longer gardens the extensions give a 3.5m run and a peninsula. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace, Victorian semi-detached villa, 1930s semi and postwar estate. Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

The main road is busy with buses and loading restrictions, the residential streets climb steeply toward Sydenham Hill, and almost none of the terraces have off-street parking. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. Flat conversions above the shops are the awkward ones, a narrow stair straight off the street and no rear access at all.

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 template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. 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.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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. Protection goes down first. 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.