Kitchen worktops in Hendon

Yes. Interwar semis with the usual rear extension pattern sit alongside a large stock of 1930s mansion blocks where kitchens are compact, north-facing and structurally fixed. Kosher provision is widespread, so twin sinks, twin dishwashers and clearly separated worktop zones are routine, and Shabbat hot-plate space has to be planned into the run. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

1930s semi, 1930s mansion block, Victorian houses near the old village and student and campus accommodation. External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. A mansion block is a logistics job before it is a stone job. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.

Suburban streets with drives on the semis, but the mansion blocks have narrow original lifts, half-landings and stone communal stairs, and parking around Hendon Central and Brent Street is tight through the day. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it. Mansion block lifts are the limiting factor, and where a slab will not fit the lift a stone staircase carry needs proper protection to the treads and the handrail.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The sink is chosen before the cut list is set. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. The stone itself starts at £110 per square metre supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines instead of rolled together.

One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The slot belongs to whoever can open the door. Tell us about the building at the point of booking, so the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are allowed for in advance.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Joins move onto the gables this time round.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Thick external walls, deep window reveals and boxed risers mean the runs are templated to what is there rather than to a rectangle. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. Units checked before stone goes on them.

A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. A carry that needs six hands gets six hands.

An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. The lift car is usually too short and too low to take a full-length piece flat or on edge, so stone either goes up the communal stairs with their half-landings and winders, or the run is designed with joins that suit the staircase rather than the kitchen. The old top hid it; the new one will not.