Kitchen worktops in White City

Yes. Two extremes on the same postcode: 1930s estate flats with small closed kitchens of 2.0-2.6m and original ventilated larder recesses, and brand-new tower apartments with open-plan islands of 2.4-3m over a fixed services box. In the estate blocks the kitchen window is deep-set in a thick wall, so the worktop needs a generous scribe at the sill end. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s balcony-access estate block, postwar maisonette, 2010s-2020s high-rise apartment tower and former television studio conversion. A tower block runs one or two lifts for many floors, so a lift out of service postpones a job rather than making it harder. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

The older blocks are balcony access, which means the last leg is an open external walkway with a handrail on one side and front doors on the other - a slab on edge has to be walked, not wheeled, and wind on the upper decks is a genuine factor. New towers are the opposite: booked bay, goods lift, protection kit, and a security desk that will not let you past without a sign-in. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. On the 1930s decks the wind will catch a slab on edge above the third floor, so carry it flat to the door and stand it up inside.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. 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.

Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.