Worktop installation in Little Venice

Yes. Little Venice is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W9. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Where the household has used up the visitor permits it gets for the year, the remaining options are a suspension or a paid bay and both belong on the quote. 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. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The plan runs front to back with a spine wall between, so the kitchen is two rooms of work rather than one open space. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. Movement joints in the shell stay movement joints. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The last hundred millimetres decide how it reads.

The hall is the only way in and out for whoever lives there, so it is cleared and then kept clear for as long as pieces are moving. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop fabrication comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Consecutive days, one kitchen at a time. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The building keeps working around us.

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. Support first, stone second. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Where the turn inside is tight the piece gets turned on the path and brought in already on edge, which needs room in front of the door as well as behind it. 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.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. A townhouse is tall and narrow with the kitchen at the bottom, so every piece goes down a staircase rather than along a hall. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. A structure this old is worked with, not corrected.

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. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. A curved bay or a canted corner turns up more often here than people expect, and a curve is templated and cut, never bent. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. A piece is stood on end only where there is room to turn it.