Kitchen worktops in Abbey Wood

Yes. Interwar semis with a small rear kitchen and a separate dining room, many now knocked into one, sitting next to newer flats around the station with compact open-plan runs. Rear extensions have become far more common since the station opened, and that is where the islands appear. Gravel and block paving both look like hard standing and neither takes a loaded trolley, so the run from tail lift to door gets boarded. 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.

1930s semi, postwar council estate, 1990s infill and 2010s Elizabeth line new-build. Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. That is the shape of the day.

Suburban and mostly easy — front drives or a kerbside stop — though the newer blocks by the station have controlled parking and some estate roads have very little turning space for a long van. Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop templating, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Extension jobs here often want a large island in one piece, so check the new floor slab is level before templating, not after.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. The drawing leaves site complete. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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.

Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. 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.