Kitchen worktops in Canons Park

Yes. Well-proportioned interwar houses laid out around the park with kitchens usually extended once, giving a 3.6m run plus a modest island, alongside 1930s low-rise flat blocks with original small kitchens that are being modernised without moving the plumbing. Utility rooms appear in the houses, never in the flats. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three.

1930s semi and detached, 1930s purpose-built flat block and post-war infill. Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. This is the most managed day we do, with a hard finish time set by the block rather than by the work. That is the shape of the day.

Wide roads with verges and drives on the houses, and the flat blocks have generous communal entrances but low-headroom stairwells that decide how a slab is turned. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. In the 1930s blocks the kitchen window sits low and the original tiled splashback is bedded thick, so allow for hacking off before the upstand can sit flush.

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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The units stay, the surface changes. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. One visit, our own installers. 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.