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. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

Victorian terrace, Victorian villa, 1960s estate block and Interwar semi. A top-floor conversion puts part of the kitchen under the slope of the roof, so the wall behind the run stops at head height along one side of the room. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor.

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. Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Chosen against the doors that are staying. 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.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A corner that will not close is never forced. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. A filler strip is evidence, not decoration. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. The back addition is frequently a single skin of brick rendered on both faces, which takes a fixing badly and moves with the weather. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off 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. The way out is measured with the way in.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. The stack was boxed in after the kitchen went in.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. Levelled under the units first.