Worktop installation in Hyde Park Estate

Yes. Hyde Park Estate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W2. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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 the van stands sets how the day runs. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw.

Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Boards go down wherever a loaded trolley has to run. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. 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. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The join is the last thing finished. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One person is responsible for the door that morning.

A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Support first, stone second.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. 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. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

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. Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Every unit gets a level on it before a piece lands.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced.