Kitchen worktops in Oval

Yes. Terraces around the ground have been split into flats more often than not, so the kitchen typically sits in a rear room with a 2.6m run and a return, sometimes opened into the living space with a breakfast bar. Whole houses take a modest rear extension rather than a full-width rebuild because gardens are short. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Victorian terrace, Georgian terrace, Edwardian mansion flat and Postwar estate block. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Match days close roads and fill every space, so scheduling has to work around the cricket calendar. Permit bays are tight, front gardens are shallow railed areas, and upper flats have a shared stair with a landing turn. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. It decides panel size before anything is cut.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. Conversion flats here frequently have the kitchen on an upper floor with a boxed soil stack in the corner, so allow for a scribed notch at one end of the run.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The join is the last thing finished. 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. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run as the tops. 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.