Kitchen worktops in Rush Green

Yes. Uniform inter-war semis and terraces on the Dagenham border where kitchens are compact and largely unaltered, so a lot of the work is a practical refresh: new tops, new sink, matching upstands, keeping the existing units. Where a rear extension has gone in, it is usually a shallow one adding a metre and moving the sink to the new back wall. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s semi, 1930s terrace and post-war infill. These kitchens have been retiled at least twice, and stripping the tiles takes the bottom band of plaster with them because the old laminate ran underneath rather than up to them. What catches people out is the junction between the old floor and the extension floor, which is rarely at the same level, so a run carrying across it needs the units packed before stone goes on. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Straightforward suburban streets with dropped kerbs on many houses and a shared side passage between semi pairs, though the main roads through here carry hospital traffic and are not somewhere to unload. Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. 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 installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. Shared side passages between semi pairs are legally the neighbour's half as well, so we ask before wheeling a slab down one.

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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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.

The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall has to be ready. 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.