Worktop installation in Belsize Park

Yes. Belsize Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A large villa has wide doors, a generous hall and somewhere to park, so the joins that go in are chosen for layout rather than forced by the route. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. That is the shape of the day. Conversion partitions are stud rather than brick, so check the fixing before cantilevering a peninsula off one, and expect the ceiling drops to force a lower splashback height than the client asked for.

CPZ enforced Monday to Friday with permit-only bays on the hill streets, and residents' parking around Haverstock Hill is effectively full all day. Communal front doors, no lifts in the villa conversions, and half-landing turns on the original staircases mean the tightest measurement is usually the return on the first-floor stair. 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. That is what the morning is planned around.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.