Kitchen worktops in West Norwood

Yes. Steep terraced streets where houses are often split into flats, so the kitchen is a rear room of about 2.4m by 3.5m with a run and a return and no space for an island. Whole houses take a shallow rear extension because gardens rise steeply away from the building. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Victorian terrace, Victorian villa, 1960s estate block and Interwar semi. 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. Victorian party walls and chimney-breast returns bow along their length, so the template plots the real line rather than assuming a straight one - the laser picks up points every few hundred millimetres down the back of the run and the drawing carries that curve through to the saw. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

The gradient means many properties have flights of external steps up from the pavement to a raised front door, which is the main handling problem here. Parking is a mix of controlled and uncontrolled by street, and the South Circular limits east-west movement at peak. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. That is part of what the visit is for.

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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first. External steps up to raised entrances are the recurring issue — count them and check the tread depth before quoting, because a six-step approach changes the labour on every piece.

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. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Height change is checked before we cut. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.