Worktop fabrication in Paddington

Yes. Paddington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W2. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. Two trips off the van means two chances to catch a corner. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Ceiling heights are held to the minimum the plan allows, so the panel between worktop and wall units is a short piece. Piece size is set by the lift car, not by the slab. Nested to the route first and the slab second. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. A relief that deep changes how the piece is lifted.

A height barrier on the car park entrance rules out a tail-lift van outright, and the stone then transfers to a trolley at the barrier itself. Getting that wrong leaves a finished, machined piece that cannot reach the room, which is a remake rather than a trim. The drawing states a maximum length and the shop honours it. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Packing takes its cue from the distance to the door.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Reorderable later, or not specified. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Six kitchens, one slab run, one colour.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. The saw follows the nest, not the floor plan. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Cut to the plotted line, not the nominal one. Sink, tap and hob need to be with us before machining, along with confirmation of whether the island is getting a breakfast overhang, since anything past roughly 300mm unsupported needs steel let into the carcasses and that has to be built in, not added later. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. A verbal change is not an instruction.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Riser panels, wall boxes and the boiler cupboard sit in fixed positions the developer will not move for a worktop. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. A piece that needs trimming later was drawn wrong.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Nothing is payable in advance of the template. The room is square, the walls are plumb and the floor is flat, so almost every complication in the job belongs to the building rather than the kitchen. The workshop works to the template drawing and to the measured route, in that order. The drawing decides it before the saw does.

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. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. The mitre is cut to the angle we found, not to ninety.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Book-matched pieces are cut adjacent or not at all.