Kitchen worktops in Turnpike Lane

Yes. Terraced houses split into flats plus a lot of accommodation above the shops on the High Road, so kitchens are small, awkwardly shaped, and often lit only by a rooflight or a light well. A 2.2m run with a slimline dishwasher is a common brief. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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.

Victorian terrace, flat above shop and 1930s purpose-built flat. 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. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Everything the last fit ignored is visible for a morning.

The High Road has bus lanes, a station entrance and permanent loading pressure - realistically you are working before 9am or unloading in a side street. Flats over shops mean a street door between two shopfronts and a steep straight stair with no half-landing. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Booked around the turnaround, not our diary. Straight steep stairs with no landing are the constraint - a 3m slab cannot be tilted on the way up, so plan for two shorter pieces jointed in the kitchen.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Older houses put the boiler or the meter on one of the two walls, and whatever is boxed in around it sets the point where that run has to stop. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Same shape, different cut list.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. The shell is the constant here; the surface is not.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. The two runs are read against each other rather than against the floor, so they are set to one datum taken across the aisle instead of measured up from the boards. 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 old cut-outs prove nothing.