Worktop installation in Portsoken

Yes. Portsoken is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1, EC3N. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. A market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The kitchen is a small room off a hall with one external wall, and the window in it is the only relief in the run. Access is generally through the front door and a short straight hall into the kitchen, which is a good deal kinder than a Victorian terrace, though rear access through a back garden or shared path is often the better route if it exists. Where the wall bellies, the top is eased in against it. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. A forced back edge cracks weeks later.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Protection comes up only when the last piece is inside. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. 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. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer.

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. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again. Unlock any rear or shared path gate and clear both the hall and the back approach so we can choose the better route on the day. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Emptying the room belongs to the keyholder, not the crew.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The gap closes on the grinder, not in the sealant gun.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. An event-day suspension can override a bay that is perfectly usable the rest of the week, so a booked space gets checked again nearer the time. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. 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. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Steel under the overhang before stone goes near it.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. The communal entrance opens straight off the pavement with no lobby, so the carry starts at the kerb and turns immediately. The fitting itself is about squaring up to walls that look modern and are not: block or breeze walls with a skim that has been patched over decades, so we still dry-lay and scribe rather than trust the template edge. The shell has the last word on fitting day.