Worktop fabrication in Muswell Hill Fringe

Yes. Muswell Hill Fringe is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N2, N10. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. The other constraint is the hall: a piece has to come through the front door, round the newel at the foot of the stairs and through a doorway into the back kitchen, so we size the pieces to the tightest turn on that route before we nest anything, which sometimes means splitting a run that would otherwise have gone in whole. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out. Undermounted Belfast sinks need the cut-out and the drainer grooves fabricated before delivery, so the sink has to be on site at template stage.

The ground rises sharply towards Muswell Hill so driveways slope and several roads are one-way with tight parking; front gardens are short and the doorstep is often three or four steps above the pavement. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. It is settled on the bench, not on site.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop templating and worktop installation. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Same slab run, or it is not a match. 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. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Nested for the job in front of us.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Every join sits over a gable. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. 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 drawing decides it, not the fitter. The sink and hob need to be on site and the run layout fixed before we start cutting, because moving a hob after the join position is set means recutting the whole piece. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Dry-assembled before it leaves.