Kitchen worktops in Wimbledon Park

Yes. The terraces on the streets sloping down to the lake are the classic side-return job: the alley is filled in, the kitchen widens to about 3.6m and takes a long run under a rooflight with a modest island opposite. Where houses are split into upper and lower conversions, the top flat usually keeps a narrow galley in the old back bedroom. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

Edwardian terrace, Victorian terrace and Purpose-built 1930s flat. The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Permit-holder bays fill up from mid-morning and the streets are narrow enough that a parked van blocks a lane. Upper conversion flats are reached by a straight but tight internal stair with a half-landing turn, so long lengths have to be measured against the stairwell diagonal before ordering. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. 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 templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Extension floors here are often laid before the units go in and settle unevenly, so the base cabinets need packing and re-levelling on template day or the joint on a long run opens up.

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. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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 same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.