Worktop installation in Notting Hill

Yes. Notting Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W11. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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 carry length sets the number of hands on the job. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. The day is planned backwards from the hall. What the building will take decides how it is fixed. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

Every internal doorway on the way through is another frame to clear, and internal doors come off their hinges rather than being propped open. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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. Moving the van mid-fit costs an hour nobody budgeted.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop fabrication. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. One staircase can serve an owner on the first floor and a managed tenancy on the second, so the access arrangement changes at every landing while the building stays the same. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. No money changes hands before the template. Injected damp courses and re-rendered lower walls leave the bottom metre standing proud of everything above it. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Two lifts and a turn make it a four-man piece.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. 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. The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A hall that widens further in is still only as good as its tightest point, and that point is usually within a metre of the front door. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.