Kitchen worktops in Gospel Oak

Yes. Much of the stock is post-war flats with small purpose-built galley kitchens, two facing runs at 2.4-2.8m on standard 600mm depth, usually with a serving hatch the client wants closed up. The surviving Victorian terraces on the fringes are the opposite job, with a rear-addition kitchen and a knock-through to the dining room. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

post-war estate block, 1960s tower, Victorian terrace and 1970s low-rise housing. The rear wall is usually a single brick thick and has been rendered, patched and re-rendered, so it bows in and out along the length of the run. 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. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Estate roads with barriers, unloading bays that are already occupied, internal corridors, then a lift that will not take a 3m slab upright. Where the lift is out or the flat is on a deck access level everything goes up the stair core, which forces smaller pieces. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Lift car dimensions decide the job on estate blocks, so measure the car and the stair-core turns at template stage and price a mid-run join as standard.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run as the tops. 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.