Kitchen worktops in Catford

Yes. Edwardian terraces behind the Broadway with back-addition kitchens, plus a lot of purpose-built and converted flats where the kitchen is a single 2.4m to 3m run against one wall. Rear extensions are common on the terraces to the south and east. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. We would rather ask than guess.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, 1960s council block and 1930s mansion flats. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. What is under the old top is the real question.

A one-way system and two stations funnel traffic tightly through the centre with loading restrictions on the main roads; the residential streets are permit-parked and narrow. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, 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. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Appliances on site, not on order. Flats over the shops around the Broadway almost always mean a stair carry and a jointed run — price that in rather than discovering it on the day.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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. Plumber either side of us. 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.