Kitchen worktops in North Finchley

Yes. A real split between family terraces and semis off the main road, where kitchens get extended into decent 3.6m plus island layouts, and flats over the High Road shops where the kitchen is a fixed 2.4m run in a converted first-floor room. The flats above the parades are consistently the tightest work in the district. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew.

Edwardian terrace, 1930s semi, flats above the High Road parades and post-war low-rise block. Working hours are constrained by the business underneath, so noisy work has a window rather than a day. Runs commonly finish at a doorway, and the architrave and skirting stand proud of the plaster, so the end of the top is notched or stopped on the drawing. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Ballards Lane and the High Road are bus corridors with clearway restrictions, and the flats above shops are reached from rear service yards up an external steel or timber staircase. Residential side streets are easier but permit-controlled. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. That is part of what the visit is for.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. External stair access to shop flats limits pieces to what two people can safely carry up open treads, usually under 2m, so plan seams accordingly.

If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A plumber disconnects before we arrive and reconnects after we leave, and that is worth booking early. Plumber either side of us. 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.