Kitchen worktops in Southfields

Yes. The grid of Edwardian terraces has consistent plans with a rear addition that owners widen and lengthen, ending up with a kitchen of roughly 3.4m by 5m holding a long run and a modest island. Many houses are split into upper and lower maisonettes, and the upper one gets a compact L in the old rear bedroom. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Edwardian terrace, Edwardian semi and Interwar mansion flat. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Permit-only parking across the grid and pressure during the tennis fortnight make timing important, and the roads are too narrow for a van to pass a parked lorry. Upper maisonettes have their own front door and a straight stair with a tight 90 degree turn at the top. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. A template taken without walking the route produces a drawing that cuts beautifully and will not go in. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Upper maisonette stairs in this stock rarely take anything over 2.6m, so upper-flat jobs are planned around a joint from the start.

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. 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. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. 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.