Worktop installation in Canonbury

Yes. Canonbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N1. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The larder under the stairs is usually still there and still opens into the kitchen, so the run stops at a door that cannot be moved. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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. The carry length sets the number of hands on the job.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The step between rooms is packed out first. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The slot belongs to whoever can open the door.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Sink and hob seated and sealed before we go.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. 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 cut on site if the bench can do it.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Where a side return has been infilled, the join between old brick and new blockwork lands mid-run and the two faces are never in one plane. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. The shell has the last word on fitting day.