Kitchen worktops in Wealdstone

Yes. Small Victorian and interwar terraces with rear kitchens barely 2.2m wide, and a large body of new apartments built on the old Kodak and industrial land where kitchens are open-plan single walls with an integrated appliance stack. The terraces get replacement tops in the existing footprint; the new flats get upgrades from builder-grade laminate. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Victorian workers' terrace, 1930s terrace and recent flats on former industrial land. Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. 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. What is under the old top is the real question.

Terraced streets with no drives and heavy on-street parking near the High Street, and new blocks with underground parking, height barriers and booked goods lifts. Two completely different loading problems within a few hundred metres. 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. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. In the small terraces a 600mm deep top will not clear the back door swing, so check whether the door needs rehanging before the stone arrives.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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.

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 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall has to be ready. 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.