Kitchen worktops in Camden Town

Yes. Heavy flat-conversion territory, so a lot of kitchens are the rear half of a first-floor conversion or a lower-ground room off a light well, which keeps runs to 2.4-3.2m single-wall or a shallow L with the sink under the window. Whole-house jobs are rarer than up the hill, and when they happen it is usually a rear knock-through with a 3m run and a peninsula rather than a full island. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. The van has to stand through both halves of the day.

early Victorian terrace, Georgian-style stucco terrace, post-war ex-local-authority block and canal-side new build. Ceilings in the principal rooms are three metres or more, so a full-height panel behind a hob is a taller piece here than the same kitchen would need anywhere else. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. What is under the old top is the real question.

The CPZ runs seven days near the markets, the streets around the Lock are pedestrianised or clogged with market traffic until late, and Camden Road and Kentish Town Road are constant bus routes with nowhere to sit a van. Most drops are a shared front door then a turn onto a narrow converted landing, so a 3m slab often cannot be carried flat past the newel post. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. 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 void ends whether we have finished or not. Expect to plan a join purely to get material up a converted staircase, and check the floor first because conversion floors above a shop or a pub bounce more than you want under 30mm quartz.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Stone wants gables where laminate needed none. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A rolling programme loses a flat to one missing key. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. A villa cut into flats leaves kitchens in rooms that were never kitchens, with services run to wherever they could physically be made to reach. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. The flat entrance door and the internal doorways are usually tighter than the communal stairs, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. 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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The strip-out is the part worth planning.