Kitchen worktops in North Harrow

Yes. Textbook Metroland semis, kitchen at the rear beside a dining room, with the standard improvement being to knock through and add a small rear extension for a kitchen-diner of roughly 3.6m of run plus a 1.8m island or breakfast bar. A high proportion still have their original small kitchen and want a straight replacement. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The kerb decides the start time.

1930s Metroland semi, 1930s bay-fronted terrace and 1960s maisonette. A serving hatch through to the dining room was standard, and where it has been blocked up the patch sits on a different plane to the wall either side of it. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

Wide roads with grass verges, dropped kerbs and driveways on most houses, and side gates typically wide enough to take a slab down the side to a rear extension without going through the house. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. The old top leaves by the route the new one arrives on.

Worktop installation and worktop replacement, in that order. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. One flat out of use at a time. Straightforward stock, so the constraint is usually the retained 1930s window cill height dictating whether a 20mm or 30mm top fits under it.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate was scribed thin. Stone cannot be. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Out and in on the same permission. 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.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. This is the commonest reason a replacement turns out to need more than a straight swap. What is behind the old top decides the day.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. The larder had a cold shelf and an air brick straight through to the outside, and that brick is usually still open behind whatever now stands in front of it. The fitting itself is slower than the carry: original plaster on the party wall and around the old chimney breast is rarely square to the run, so back scribes get cut on site, and where a return wraps into a breast recess we template that shoulder tight and ease it in. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. Chosen against the doors that are staying.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Van to door is the distance that matters.