Kitchen worktops in Clerkenwell

Yes. Loft conversions of print, watchmaking and light-industrial buildings, where the kitchen is a run and an island in one large open space with exposed brick, steel and timber floors. Runs of 4m plus a 2.5-3m island are common and clients often want a single stone carried across island, worktops and splashback. 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. 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.

former industrial warehouse conversion, Georgian terrace, Victorian model-dwelling block and modern apartment. The goods lift is generous and the flat entrance often is not, so the tightest point on the route is inside the flat rather than in the building. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. The house sets the order of work.

Inside the Congestion Charge zone with narrow one-way streets, loading bans through the busiest hours and traffic filters on several residential blocks. Many converted buildings retain a goods lift, which is the difference between a one-piece island and a jointed one. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. A piece too long for the stairs is a piece cut twice.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Quartz reorders in five years, a granite block does not. The floors in these conversions are old timber over long spans and are rarely flat, so level and pack the island carcass properly before setting stone or a 3m top will telegraph every dip.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Pieces are carried in the order they are laid. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Machined to the real line. 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.

Quartz is the sensible default in a rental: nothing to seal, nothing to maintain, and nothing an incoming tenant needs briefing on. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction. 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.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Open plan means long uninterrupted runs and an island in the middle of the room with every edge on show. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Suction pads will not hold on a wet or dusty face.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Cut oversize on purpose, every time.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Goods lifts and passenger lifts fail differently: one has a rated load that matters, the other has a door aperture that matters more. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. Handling points are marked on the crate before it is strapped.