Kitchen worktops in Hampstead

Yes. Two very different jobs sit side by side: listed Georgian townhouses where the kitchen is still in the semi-basement with low ceilings, stone floors and structural piers breaking up every run, and larger detached villas where the kitchen has moved to a rear garden room with a genuine island. Basement runs are short and interrupted by chimney breasts, so the cutting list is long even when the room is not. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. 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. Camera enforcement does not take an explanation.

Georgian townhouse, Victorian villa, Arts and Crafts house, 1930s modernist block and mansion block. A basement is often reached by its own door under the front steps, and that door is smaller than anything else on the route. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

Steep hills, single-track lanes, cobbled and stepped sections that no van gets near, and a CPZ with almost no loading space anywhere near the Village. Lower-ground kitchens are reached down an external area staircase with a tight quarter turn at the bottom, which is normally the narrowest point on the whole job. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

Worktop installation, 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 fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear. Listed-building consent shapes what you can fix to a wall, so upstands often replace tiled splashbacks and the area steps dictate slab sizes long before the kitchen layout does.

The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Levels are checked across the walkway, not along one side. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The room cleared before the crew arrives. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Offered up twice, bonded once.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. Pieces are stood on edge for the turns and carried flat for the straights, and that sequence is agreed before anything comes off the van. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Sealant seals. It does not fit.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. The units are levelled and packed before a top goes near them, because a settled floor shows immediately in a long straight edge. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor.