Kitchen worktops in Tooting Graveney

Yes. More interwar semis than the north end of Tooting, so the recurring job is knocking the kitchen into the rear reception and running an L with a breakfast bar rather than building a big glass box. Runs sit around 3m with a 1.5m return. 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 templater circling for a space arrives late into a slot that was already tight, and the drawing is what suffers. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Interwar semi, Victorian terrace and 1960s low-rise flat. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. The kitchen is normally the original back room with a later side-return or rear extension bolted on, and that helps us: most pieces can go down the side alley and in through the back door in one length, so we can avoid joins that a front-door route would force. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Parking restrictions are lighter towards the borough boundary and many houses have hardstanding, which makes staging easier than in central Tooting. Side alleys between semis are the usual squeeze at roughly 800mm. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. The strip-out is planned around it.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating, 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. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. Knocking into the rear reception leaves the old external wall thickness as a step in the run, so the worktop needs a stepped back edge rather than a straight scribe.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Dry-lay first, always. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. 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.

An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Plumber either side of us. 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.