Kitchen worktops in Crouch End

Yes. Side-return infills are the default job here - the old 1.8m galley in the back addition becomes a 3.5m run with a small island or a peninsula, usually with a rooflight overhead. Above the Broadway there are conversion flats where the kitchen is a 2.4m run in a former reception with the cornice still running over it. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects 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. A timed bay does not cover a strip-out and a fit.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian conversion flat and 1930s mansion block. Sash windows in the addition sit low and the sill can land under standard worktop height, so the top is notched round it or the run stops short of it. 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. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

Everything is on a hill. Crouch End Hill and Crouch Hill are steep enough that a loaded trolley needs two people on the downhill side, and the Broadway has short-stay bays and heavy bus traffic. Top-floor conversion flats have no lift and a narrow Victorian dogleg stair. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it. Conversion flats above the shops have springy joisted floors - check deflection under the island position before committing to a 20mm slab.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. A thinner top drops the run against the tiles. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Two millimetres at the wall is two millimetres you see. Material starts at £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines rather than inside one figure.

Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. Let us know the building when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are handled beforehand rather than on the fitting day.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Chipboard carcasses get bracing before stone lands on them.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. 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. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Breakfast bars get the steel they never had.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. Old stone is heavier going out than it looked coming in.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.