Kitchen worktops in Bunhill

Yes. Predominantly flats in tall blocks with compact galley kitchens of 2.4-2.8m against a fixed services wall. The newer developments have open-plan kitchen-living rooms, but the floorplates favour a peninsula return over a freestanding island. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Panels come across in one pass with the route already cleared.

post-war estate block, modern tower, warehouse conversion and Victorian block. Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. Exposed brick is the defining issue: the face is uneven by 10mm or more across a bay, so a stone splashback either scribes to it, which means the back of the panel has to be relieved, or it is deliberately set proud on a subframe with a shadow reveal all round. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour.

Congestion Charge zone with red routes on City Road and Old Street, plus a low-traffic scheme covering the residential streets behind. Tower access runs through a booked service lift and an agreed delivery window with the managing agent. A car that answers every floor button pressed while a piece is standing in it needs to be held on the key, and the key usually lives at a desk that wants notice. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A builder-finish kitchen upgrades in a morning. Managing agents here run tight access rules, so confirm lift dimensions and protection requirements in writing at template stage rather than turning up with a full van.

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. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. 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. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Expect material from £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised on their own lines rather than folded into one figure.

Inventories record the condition of a kitchen at both ends of a tenancy, which is a practical argument for a surface that looks the same in its fifth year as its first. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Replacement suits occupied stock better than a strip-out. Mention the building when you book. The lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice then go into the plan instead of turning up on the day.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Corners get their own pieces.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Exposed brick and steel is the whole job here, because neither of them presents a flat plane to scribe to. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Window reveals decide where the run of stone stops.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. Setting proud is usually the better call: it reads as a deliberate detail rather than a bad fit, and it avoids trying to scribe stone to a surface that has no consistent plane. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops.