Worktop installation in Chalk Farm

Yes. Chalk Farm is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW1, NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. 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. Where the van stands sets how the day runs. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A mews house is narrow and deep with the kitchen often behind a garage at ground level, so the front opening is wide and the internal doors are not. Access through the property is usually the simplest of any archetype, with wide doors and generous rooms, so we can often carry a full-length piece straight in without a planned join. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

A Victorian hall arch sits lower than the ceiling either side of it, and it is the point a piece carried on edge meets first. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The void ends whether we have finished or not.

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. 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. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. 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.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Mews are cobbled and tight, so a long-wheelbase van may not get down at all and the carry starts at the entrance to the mews. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Most are conversions of stabling or garaging, so the structure is a mix of original brick and later steel. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.