Kitchen worktops in Hackney Central

Yes. A mix of terraces converted to flats, estate blocks and recent apartments above the town centre, so older stock gives rear-addition kitchens of about 3m while new blocks are open-plan with a 3m run and a peninsula. The Georgian survivors near the churchyard have small original rooms with layouts that cannot be moved. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. 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. Where the van must move, the waste goes on first.

Victorian terrace, Georgian survivor, post-war estate and new-build apartment. The communal stair is wide and handsome and the flat door at the top of it is a standard leaf, which is where a long piece stops. 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 wall behind the old top has not been seen in years.

Mare Street has bus lanes and loading restrictions, and the surrounding grid is filtered with several streets closed to through traffic by camera-enforced gates. New blocks have service lifts and booked bays, while the older terraces mean a shared hall and a first-floor turn. A car ceiling at 2.2m sets the tallest thing that will stand in it, and the trap panel and light fitting take a slice off even that. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is agreed before the crew is booked, not after.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Camera-enforced filters catch more fitters here than anything else, so drive the van route on the ground beforehand and build the longer legal approach into the day.

The joint where a peninsula meets the main run wants a gable directly under it, and where the units do not offer one, steel goes in to carry that joint instead. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Laminate hides what the gables are really doing. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access confirmed rather than assumed. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The notch is eased until it drops, then bonded.

There is nothing to pay before the template visit. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Water damage under a sink is the usual find.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. 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. Old tops were scribed to a wall that has moved since.