Kitchen worktops in East Finchley

Yes. Edwardian terraces with the kitchen in the back addition, and the standard local job is a side return infill giving a wide rear kitchen with a 4m run and a compact island. Estate houses on the other side of the district keep smaller kitchens with the original footprint and get replacement tops only. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. 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 day is built around that window.

Edwardian terrace, 1930s semi, interwar cottage estate and 1930s mansion block. Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. 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. What is under the old top is the real question.

Streets are narrow and permit-controlled with almost no off-street parking on the terraces, so slabs go through the front door and along a hall with a stair return. The High Road has loading restrictions that push vans into side streets. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop replacement, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Side return infills leave a long unbroken wall that looks ideal until you find the old external brick face has been dry-lined unevenly, so template against the finished lining.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The template records every angle in that shape as it actually is rather than as the plan drew it. One datum for the whole room. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

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. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Plumber either side of us. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.