Kitchen worktops in Bankside

Yes. High-spec apartment kitchens, usually a German handleless system with a full-height tall bank, a long island with mitred waterfall ends, and a preference for large-format porcelain or Dekton at 12mm to 20mm rather than heavy stone. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. A booked slot dictates the order the frame is filled in.

1990s riverside apartment, 2000s glass tower and converted industrial building. A balcony door is the only other opening in the flat and it leads nowhere useful, so everything comes in through the front door. We work to the internal depth of the car and the diagonal you can actually stand a piece up on with the doors closed, then nest to that, which routinely turns a two-piece kitchen into a three-piece one with an extra join over a gable. What the shell demands is solved in the shop, not the kitchen.

Riverside towers with a single loading bay, booked service lift, protective floor coverings demanded by building management, and no kerbside anywhere near the entrance. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. New-build kitchens are usually smaller than the plan suggests once the appliances are in, so the usable run is shorter than the drawn run. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Waterfall ends and mitred edges mean the fabrication tolerances matter more than the fitting - a 1mm out on the mitre shows on a 900mm drop.

Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Drawn onto the slab before it is cut. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Sprinkler heads and extract ducts are coordinated into the ceiling, so an extractor over an island goes where the services already allow. The lift diagonal governs the longest piece, so the join count is fixed at nesting and cannot be revisited on the day. Settled on the drawing, cut once.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. A riverside block is a managed building with a booked goods lift, a loading bay and a concierge, and all three have to line up on the same day. An internal corner is cut to the angle the template recorded, so the mitre closes against a bellied board instead of gapping at the tip. The bench proves it before the van moves.

Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Riser panels, wall boxes and the boiler cupboard sit in fixed positions the developer will not move for a worktop. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The slab is laid out around the awkward piece.