Kitchen worktops in West Kensington

Yes. The mansion blocks on the avenues off North End Road have deep plans with the kitchen at the back off a long internal corridor, taking 2.6-3.2m of run and a separate larder cupboard that often becomes a fridge housing. Corridor width is the defining feature - many are only 900-1000mm with a right-angle at the kitchen door, so nothing over about 2.6m gets round without going on edge and tilted. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. 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 clock on the bay runs whether the lift is free or not.

red-brick mansion block, Victorian terrace subdivided into flats, postwar estate block and flat over North End Road shop. Walls are solid brick with lime plaster and a hard skim over the top, and that skim comes away in sheets when old tiles are taken back. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. Nothing is screwed into plasterboard and hoped for.

Mansion blocks here mostly have no lift or a small original one, communal stone stairs with iron balustrades, and a caretaker rather than a full-time porter, so access is arranged flat by flat. North End Road has a street market on trading days that removes kerbside access entirely, so pick a non-market day for delivery if you can. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. Nothing new comes down a hall still full of old top.

Worktop replacement 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Chosen against the doors that are staying. The internal corridor turn beats the front door every time in these blocks - template the corridor, then design the joints.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. A corner that will not close is never forced. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It was there long before we were. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Void periods do not extend to suit a lead time. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. No money is taken before the template happens. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. These kitchens were service rooms once, so they are long, narrow and further from the entrance than the floor plan suggests. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. The finish time is set by the block rather than by the work, so the sequence is planned to end early rather than to run late. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The route is protected once and then used four times.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The old top hid it. The drawing will not.