Kitchen worktops in Fullwell Cross

Yes. Post-war semis and maisonettes with compact rectangular kitchens, mostly single-run or narrow galley, and a fair number of maisonette kitchens on the first floor. Owners here tend to keep the room shape and upgrade the finish, so we are matching new stone to existing wall units and tiling more often than designing from scratch. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, 1950s semi and post-war maisonette. A maisonette puts the kitchen on one of two levels, so an internal staircase may be part of the route as well as the communal one. The plaster is bonded straight onto the concrete, so the bottom course of tiles tends to bring plaster with it when the old top comes off, leaving a rough band behind the upstand. What is under the old top is the real question.

Residential roads are fine and most houses have a drive, but the maisonettes above and behind the parade mean a straight-flight staircase carry with a half-landing turn that limits what length we can get up in one piece. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. 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. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A plumber either side of us. For anything above ground floor here we measure the stair turn first — a 3m piece will not make the bend, so we plan a joint rather than find out on delivery day.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. 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. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.