Kitchen worktops in Nine Elms

Yes. Almost entirely new-build apartment kitchens: handleless slab doors, an integrated appliance wall, and either a straight peninsula or a small island, all built to the developer's original dimensions. Work here is upgrading a builder-grade top to stone or fitting out shell-and-core units rather than reconfiguring rooms. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. We would rather ask than guess.

2010s and 2020s high-rise apartment and Converted power station and industrial building. Poured screed over steel decking can fall away across a long run, so level is checked across the whole room before anything is packed. These read as easy from outside and rarely are, because the flat entrance is tighter than the goods lift. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Every building is managed — loading bay booking, a service lift with a stated internal length, dock time limits and a site induction before anyone goes up. The lift diagonal, not the door, is what limits slab size. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. 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. Get the goods lift internal dimensions in writing before cutting, because a 2.8m piece that will not stand up in the lift car has to be re-cut at the workshop, not on the loading bay.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Machined to the real line. 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 let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. 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.