Worktop installation in Holland Park

Yes. Holland Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W11, W14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. 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. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop fabrication first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Emptying the room belongs to the keyholder, not the crew.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. An island carries its own edge detail all the way round, so a mitred 100mm apron on four sides is four mitres cut, bonded and polished before the piece ever leaves the bench. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Access is checked against the longest piece first.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Listing and conservation conditions apply to a good number of these, which constrains what can be altered around the kitchen rather than what goes on top of the units. 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.