Kitchen worktops in Mayfair

Yes. Two distinct jobs - grand flats where the kitchen is a small back-of-house room the owners never intended to be seen, and lateral conversions where two flats have been knocked together and the kitchen becomes a designed room with book-matched marble, a 3m island and a hidden prep pantry behind it. Specs come from an interior designer with a drawing, not from the client. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

Georgian townhouse, listed mansion flat, lateral apartment conversion and mews house. The kitchen is a rear service room with a scullery and a larder off it, and both have usually survived as separate spaces. Islands here regularly run longer than a slab, so the join is nested to sit over an internal gable and positioned so it does not run through the hob cut-out, and on a heavily veined stone we nest the island and the back run together so the movement relates across the room. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out.

Estate freeholders impose alteration consents and works hours, the buildings are listed so nothing gets fixed to original fabric without approval, and the lifts in period blocks are small original cars that will not take a slab. Deliveries are frequently routed through the mews at the back on a permit. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. Nesting follows the route, not the other way round.

Worktop fabrication, in that order. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Nested for the job in front of us. Marble here is specified by the designer and it stains - get the client to sign off on sealing and expected patina before you fabricate, because the complaint always comes later.

A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. 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. 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. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. The notch is machined, never ground in later. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. One batch wherever the specification repeats. 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.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. 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. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The crate is built to the same measurement.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Every piece is labelled to its place in the run.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Windows are low and wide with deep timber cills and leaded lights, so a run under one meets joinery rather than plaster. The joins here are chosen rather than forced, so they go where the veining and the gables want them. Nested to the route first and the slab second.

What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. That is the last thing settled before dispatch.