Kitchen worktops in Woolwich Dockyard

Yes. Small Victorian terraces and low-rise estate housing where the kitchen is the original back room, 2.1m to 2.7m of run, a boiler on the wall and an external door landing in the middle of the best worktop wall. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. 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, 1970s low-rise estate and 1980s infill housing. Cottage terraces have no hall to speak of and the front door opens almost straight into the room, which makes the carry easier and the protection harder. Pieces are sized to the tightest turn on the route before anything is nested to the slab. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out.

Narrow streets running down toward the river with parking on both sides and a couple of routes severed by the rail line; short carries, but rarely anywhere legal to stop for long. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating 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 units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. Expect to work around a wall-hung combi and a back door, usable run is often a metre shorter than the room suggests.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. 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.