Kitchen worktops in Wormholt

Yes. The interwar cottage estate houses were built with a small dedicated kitchen at the rear, roughly 2.4m by 2m, with a larder and a back door onto the garden, and many still have that footprint. Where a rear extension has been added the kitchen becomes an L of about 3m by 2m, but the original external wall usually stays as a nib, which forces a joint or a mitre at the corner. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. That is why they are crated the way they are.

1920s cottage estate house, interwar municipal terrace, postwar infill flats and housing association maisonette. Rear access through a garden or a shared path means long pieces can usually come in whole from the back. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Estate layout with front gardens, low walls and gates, and reasonably wide streets, so vehicle access is easier than most of W12 - the constraint is the narrow original front door and a hall barely 900mm wide. Some properties still have the original side alley to the garden, which is the better route if the gate can come off its hinges. 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. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. Joint positions follow from that.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project. The retained nib of the old back wall is where these kitchens want a mitre, and getting that internal corner tight is what the job is judged on.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.