Kitchen worktops in Kentish Town

Yes. The standard is a two or three storey Victorian terrace with the kitchen in the back addition, giving a long thin room and an L-run down one wall with the boiler cupboard eating the corner. Side-return infills are common on the streets off Fortess Road and turn that into a 4-5m galley, with an island only where the return is wide enough to leave a walkway. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. 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. Both loads want the same few metres of kerb.

Victorian terrace, 1930s mansion block, post-war ex-local-authority and Edwardian terrace. The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. Lath-and-plaster and bowed brickwork mean we template for scribes rather than straight cuts, and each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped straight down. What is under the old top is the real question.

Camden CPZ Monday to Saturday with very fast bay turnover, and the side roads off Kentish Town Road are one-way with build-outs, so the van usually stops on the main road and the slab is walked in. Front doors sit up three to five steps behind railings and the halls are typically under 900mm, which is the real limiting dimension rather than the doorway. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The last trade in inherits every delay before it. Rear-addition walls here are routinely out by 15-25mm over 3m, so template on site and scribe rather than trusting a plan, and allow for a join where old brick meets new blockwork on a fresh extension.

A single long run down one side puts every cut-out in one piece, so the sink, the hob and any drainer grooves all take material out of the same length. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The strip-out is the part worth planning. 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. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

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. A locked door costs the day, not an hour. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. What the old top has been hiding is usually a floor that settled towards the back and units that were never fixed back to the wall. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

There is nothing to pay before the template visit. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. Taking the old tops off is also the first honest look at what has been going on underneath them. Door fronts and drawers get checked against the new thickness.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. Carcasses are checked for square and fixed back before a stone top goes on them. Off in the morning, on by the afternoon.