Kitchen worktops in Kensington

Yes. Two dominant jobs: townhouses off the High Street with the kitchen in the lower ground and a light shaft or vault at the front, and mansion flats where two flats have been laterally joined and the kitchen has been moved from the old rear service position into the middle of the plan with a 2.8-3.4m island. Lateral flats also throw up long uninterrupted runs against a structural wall, sometimes 4m plus, which is where joint placement earns its money. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Georgian and early Victorian townhouse, red-brick Queen Anne revival terrace, Edwardian mansion block and lateral conversion flat. 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. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day.

Mansion blocks are the constraint - porters control the goods entrance, works are usually restricted to weekday mid-morning to mid-afternoon, and the service lift is the only one you are allowed to use with materials. Measure the lift car diagonally including the ceiling height, because a 3m slab only goes in a small lift if it can be stood on edge and tilted, and many of these cars have low soffits. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. That changes what the quote should be compared against, because the shape of the job is not the same as a single family kitchen. Itemised, so it can be compared honestly. Get the porter's lift dimensions and permitted hours in writing before you order, because a block that only allows deliveries 10am to 4pm turns a one-day install into two.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Eased in, never forced. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The quote is written so it can be read by whoever is paying rather than only by whoever is standing in the kitchen. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.