Kitchen worktops in Highbury

Yes. Long late-Victorian terraces largely split into upper and lower flats, so the kitchen sits in the back addition on whichever level you are on, usually an L of 3-3.5m. Where houses are whole, the standard job is a side-return infill that turns the back addition into a wide kitchen-diner with a peninsula. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

late Victorian terrace, Georgian terrace, Edwardian mansion block and conversion flat. Where the side return has been filled in, the old external wall is now an internal one and still carries its render, its gutter line and its old fixings. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

The streets around Highbury Fields are permit-only and narrow with parking both sides, and filtered-street schemes block several of the obvious approaches. Upper-flat kitchens mean a shared front door and a steep single flight with a turn at the top. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The template visit is booked once the units are genuinely in, not when they are nearly in. Appliances on site, not on order. Side-return infills leave you scribing against a hundred-year-old party wall on one side and fresh plaster on the other, so template after plastering rather than before.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.