Worktop installation in Knightsbridge

Yes. Knightsbridge is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1X. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. This is the most managed day we do. The units are shimmed to one datum before stone touches them. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced.

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. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Someone stays on the trailing end the whole way in. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop fabrication first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. 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. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Offered up twice, bonded once.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The last piece off the van is the first one fitted.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Old plaster built up over decades makes the scribing heavy, and that time has to be in the plan rather than found on the day. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Levelled under the units first.

Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Fitting is booked as a run of consecutive days rather than as separate visits, which is what makes several kitchens in one building workable. A missing sink stops eight kitchens, not one.