Kitchen worktops in St Luke's

Yes. A lot of interwar and Victorian model-dwelling flats with small fixed kitchens of about 2.4m and a single window, sitting alongside newer towers with open-plan runs. The older blocks have solid walls, boxed stacks and no scope to extend in any direction. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1930s municipal block, Victorian model-dwelling block, warehouse conversion and modern tower. These blocks were built with a lift from new, which will usually take a worktop and almost never takes a full-length island piece. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. That is the shape of the day.

Old Street and City Road are red routes, and the estates have courtyards with bollards and narrow arched entries built for handcarts rather than vans. The older blocks are walk-ups with stone stairs and iron balustrades that do not forgive a swung slab. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. The prep list is not optional. Stone stairs and iron rails mean corner protection on every turn, since a chipped edge on the way up is the most common loss on these blocks.

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. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Corners get their own pieces. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. The laminate has been covering it up. 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 street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.