Kitchen worktops in St Paul's

Yes. The handful of residential flats here sit above shops and offices in postwar and modern blocks, so kitchens are compact open-plan arrangements of 2.6-3.2m with an integrated appliance stack and no room for an island. Ceiling voids carry a lot of services, which means bulkheads over the run and wall cupboards that stop short - stone upstands and a full-height splashback fill the gap neatly. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

postwar reconstruction block with flats above, modern apartment over retail, 1960s-80s commercial building converted to residential and small conversion flat. Piece size is set by the lift car and the entrance dogleg, which routinely turns a two-piece kitchen into a three-piece one. Housings set out for a 38mm laminate change clearance when you drop to 20mm or 30mm stone, and that is checked before cutting. What is under the old top is the real question.

The immediate cathedral surroundings are pedestrianised with bollards and stepped paving, so the van stops on a permitted street and the last 100m or more is on foot across paving that is unkind to a trolley. Service access to residential floors is usually shared with the commercial tenants and restricted to outside their delivery hours. Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. Stepped and setted paving around the cathedral will jar a trolley badly, so carry the last stretch on a frame rather than wheeling it over the flags.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. 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. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. 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.

Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. 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.