Kitchen worktops in Mile End

Yes. Terraces here are mostly split into flats, so kitchens are small and often carved out of a former bedroom or the back of a through-lounge, with runs of 1.8m to 2.4m. Landlord refits are the common job, done between tenancies with a hard end date. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. 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. The old tops leave in one movement rather than piece by piece.

Victorian terrace, 1960s-70s council tower and purpose-built student and rental block. Floors are the original joists with a later acoustic layer laid over them, and that layer is not flat where it meets the doorways. 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. The floor has dropped since the kitchen went in.

The main road through is a red route with no stopping at any time on long stretches, so everything comes in off the side streets, which are permit bays with tight parallel gaps. Converted flats mean carrying stone up a shared Victorian stair with a half-landing turn and a narrow original doorway at the top. A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Nobody sets a worktop down mid-flight to change grip.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. 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. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time. Stair turns in converted terraces are the limiter, and anything over about 2.4m in one piece will not make the first-floor landing.

A doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The return is remeasured even where it looks unchanged. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The managing agent books the lift, not the household. 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.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. 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. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. The communal stair is wide and handsome and the flat door at the top of it is a standard leaf, which is where a long piece stops. 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. Whatever the shell has done since is dealt with now.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. Each piece is offered up and eased in rather than dropped, because nothing in the room is straight enough to drop into. Plaster comes away with the old upstands more often than not.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. Going from a 38mm laminate to 20mm or 30mm stone drops the surface, which shows against tiles, a window board and any freestanding appliance. Yield is worked out fresh for the new material.