Kitchen worktops in Brent Cross

Yes. A thin band of interwar housing hemmed in by the shopping centre and the road network, plus a rapidly growing stock of brand new apartments where the kitchen is a fitted single wall with everything integrated. The houses take conventional rear extensions, but noise and traffic mean many owners spend on the interior instead of the garden. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery.

1930s semi, post-war flats and new town-scale development around the interchange. Original quarry-tiled floors sit lower than a later screed, so a run crossing that junction needs the units packed to one level. The typical 1930s kitchen sits at the back with a low window over the sink run, so the template records the exact sill height above the units to settle whether an upstand fits or the stone has to die into a window board. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Dominated by the North Circular, the flyover and the shopping centre service roads, so timing matters more than distance and a badly chosen hour can add an hour. New blocks have formal loading docks and lift bookings. 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. Door widths, turn diagonals and any change of level are recorded on the drawing alongside the run dimensions. The laser records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. The room as it is, not as it was drawn. The road network is the job risk here, so slot deliveries outside retail peak times or the van sits in traffic with a slab strapped to it.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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.

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. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Appliances on site, not on order. 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.