Kitchen worktops in Blackhorse Lane

Yes. New blocks along the corridor have open-plan kitchens with a 2.8m to 3.2m run of handleless units and an integrated appliance tower, often with a small island in the larger flats. Converted warehouse and studio units have taller ceilings and free-standing kitchen blocks with exposed sides. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

former industrial and warehouse conversion, 2016 onwards apartment tower and interwar terrace. Poured screed over steel decking can fall away across a long run, so level is checked across the whole room before anything is packed. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. That is the shape of the day.

The main road is a bus and cycle corridor with limited stopping, so deliveries route into the developments' service yards, which need booking with the building manager. Newer blocks have proper goods lifts, but the older industrial units are reached through shared yards with roller doors and no lift at all. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop fabrication, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. The new blocks take a full-length single piece up a decent goods lift, which is worth designing for rather than defaulting to a jointed run.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. 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.

Quartz is the sensible default in a rental: nothing to seal, nothing to maintain, and nothing an incoming tenant needs briefing on. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.