Kitchen worktops in Friern Barnet

Yes. Ordinary terraces and semis with rear kitchens, plus a distinctive body of apartments converted from the old asylum buildings where kitchens sit inside listed shells with huge ceiling heights, deep reveals and windows that cannot be touched. Those conversions need runs planned around fixed structure rather than around cabinetry. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian and Edwardian terrace, 1930s semi and gated conversion of the former hospital. The rear extension is frequently original rather than added, which means it is solidly built and just as far out of square as the rest of the house. 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. That is the shape of the day.

The gated conversion estate has security barriers, a one-way internal road and controlled parking, so deliveries must be pre-registered; the surrounding streets are ordinary permit-controlled suburbia with some driveways. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. In the listed conversions the walls are solid and thick with deep window reveals, so returns into the reveal have to be templated individually and cannot be assumed square.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. Real angles, not plan angles. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. One measurement never describes it, which is why a tape reading taken before the visit rarely matches the template. Plotted, not estimated. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.