Kitchen worktops in Longlands

Yes. Semis and chalet bungalows on the slope down to the Cray valley. Bungalow kitchens are square with low ceilings and sills close to the worktop, while the semis follow the usual rear-kitchen-plus-dining-room plan. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. 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. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, interwar chalet bungalow and postwar terrace. Everything on one level means no stairs, no landings and no turns, which is about the easiest carry there is in domestic work. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Units kept, surface changed, one day.

Sloping residential roads with drives on most houses, though a few streets narrow sharply toward the railway with 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. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation 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. 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. Low window sills in the bungalows kill a standard 100mm upstand, so measure sill height at template stage.

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. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. Real angles, not plan angles. 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. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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 someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. 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.