Kitchen worktops in New Barnet

Yes. Railway-era terraces and semis with rear kitchens that mostly stay where they are, plus newer apartment blocks built on old works and gasworks land where the kitchen is a fixed single wall in an open-plan living space. The house work is replacement and modest extension; the flat work is surface upgrades only. Where a loading concession applies at all, it holds only while something is being carried, which makes it a way to unload rather than a way to park. 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. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian semi, 1930s semi and recent flats on former industrial land. The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

Terraced streets near the station are permit-controlled and tightly parked, while the new blocks have designated loading and lifts. East Barnet Road is busy with limited stopping through the day. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection goes down along it first.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered. Victorian terraces here often have a step down into the rear kitchen, so the unit run sits on a different floor level and the top has to be set out from the units, not the wall.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Yield is worked out fresh for the new material. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. If it will not drop in, it goes back out to the saw. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. A hundred and forty years of alterations sit under the current kitchen, and the worktop is what has to sit flat on top of all of it. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. The old top is heavy waste, and booked as waste.

Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Handover day is a hard stop.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Rear rooms of this date have a wide sash or a pair of garden doors, so a good deal of the wall the run wants is glass. 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. Everything the last fit ignored is visible for a morning.