Kitchen worktops in Wood Lane

Yes. Almost entirely modern apartment stock, so kitchens are handleless units against a service wall with an island or peninsula of 1.8-2.6m, and the original tops are usually composite or laminate being upgraded to slab quartz or Dekton. Because these are circular-plan and curved-facade buildings in places, some kitchen runs sit against a gently curved external wall, which needs the back edge templated rather than assumed straight. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. The templater needs a proper stop, not a pause.

new-build apartment tower, former broadcasting building converted to flats, mixed-use block over retail and student and co-living scheme. Estate roads are narrow with parking courts behind the blocks, so the carry crosses open ground rather than a pavement. Everything comes up in the lift, so we measure the lift car's internal diagonal before the piece is loaded, because a car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a 3m worktop no matter how you stand it. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Every building is managed, with a loading bay booked through the concierge, a contractor induction and a goods lift that has to be reserved in a time slot. Wood Lane itself carries heavy shopping-centre traffic with bus lanes and restricted stopping, and basement service yards have height barriers that rule out a high-roof van. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. Curved facades mean some back edges are genuinely not straight - digital template it rather than trusting the drawings the developer hands you.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. 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. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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 replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Units kept, surface changed. 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.