Kitchen worktops in Lots Road

Yes. Converted industrial shells give open-plan kitchens with long uninterrupted island runs of 3-4m and exposed structure overhead, and the specification usually runs to thin 12-20mm porcelain on a mitred build-up so the top reads slim against the brick. The surviving cottage terraces behind are the reverse - single-storey rear kitchens at 2.4m with low ceilings and a stable door out to a yard. Where a road is shut for filming or for works the diversion adds distance to the carry even when parking itself was never the problem. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. A timed unload is planned into the rack before it leaves.

former power station and industrial conversion, Victorian artisan cottage terrace, riverside new-build apartment and warehouse loft. Windows are large industrial openings with deep sills, and a run finishing at one meets a reveal a full brick deep. The kitchen is open plan and the island is often long enough to need a join, and it sits in the middle of the room where every edge is visible, so the join goes over a gable and usually under the hob line where the eye does not follow it. A scribe of twenty millimetres is machined, not fettled on site.

This is a working riverside corner with the creek, boatyards and ongoing construction traffic, so road closures and contractor gate control are routine and worth checking the morning of. New riverside blocks want a booked goods lift and a delivery slot, while the loft conversions often have a wide freight lift left over from the industrial use, which is the easiest access in the whole borough when it is available. The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. If the building kept its old goods lift, use it and stop worrying about piece size - that is rare enough in SW10 to be worth planning the job around.

Everything on an island is fed from underneath, extraction, a socket run, a hob and sometimes a waste, and each of them wants its hole before the top is bonded down. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. A recut loses the sequence for good. A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

A landlord with several similar flats usually wants one specification repeated, so the material, the edge detail and the upstand height are recorded and reused rather than rechosen each time. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. Streets near a ground or a venue have restrictions that come and go with the fixture list rather than with the time of day. Pieces are loaded in reverse fitting order so the first thing off the van is the first thing that goes down. Nothing gets buried behind something it has to follow off.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Services run on the surface in these buildings, so conduit and pipework cross the wall behind the units and stand proud of it. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how uneven the wall is changes which part of the slab a piece is cut from. Older houses come off the bench with longer scribes.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Many of these kitchens are a fitted pod dropped into open floor, so three sides are free and only the fourth is ever scribed. Where a column lands in the run, its outline is machined from the template so the stone closes round it instead of stopping short. The fall across the floor is in the cut list.