Worktop fabrication in Kensal Town

Yes. Kensal Town is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W10. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Stacking order is a parking decision here. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. The galley run down a side-return usually measures longer than a slab will give us, so a join is designed in from the start and nested to land over a cabinet gable rather than wherever the material happens to run out. The piece is made for the room the builders left. 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 drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The radius goes in at the bench, not on site.

A lift out of service for the day turns a straightforward install into a stair carry, so the slot gets confirmed with whoever manages the building rather than against a calendar. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The drawing states a maximum length and the shop honours it. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The van is packed to suit the walk at the other end.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Nested for the job in front of us. 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. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. One drawing set, every unit.

Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Every piece is labelled to its place in the run. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. A deep relief needs material left behind it. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. Two names on a drawing, one of them decides.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. Where the carry is long the pieces are strapped for handling rather than for the shortest route off the tail lift. A timed unload is planned into the rack before it leaves.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. The offcut is planned before the main piece is cut.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. Pieces are cut, mitred, machined and dry-assembled on the bench before anything is loaded onto a van. Two slabs get sequenced when one will not cover the run.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Car depth is the number that settles it wherever a piece cannot be stood upright, and most residential cars are shallower than the run they are serving. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. Polishing a piece that cannot reach the room wastes a day.