Worktop installation in Queen's Park

Yes. Queen's Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6, NW10. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. 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 van does not stay on a main road once it is empty. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The shell has the last word on fitting day. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Banisters and door frames are padded before anything moves. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Time lost at the kerb never comes back later in the day.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The building keeps working around us. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. A slipped slot takes the next one with it.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Scribed one piece at a time. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. 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. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked with whoever actually holds the keys.

A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. The original range recess often survives as a shallow alcove with an iron lintel over it, a hundred millimetres deeper than the wall either side of it. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Old fabric gets handled as old fabric.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Ceilings in the addition are lower than in the front rooms, so the band of wall between the worktop and the wall units is shorter than the rest of the house suggests. Scribing takes longer than the carry does, so the quiet half of the day is the half that runs over. Lath and plaster is not a fixing, and is treated accordingly.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.

Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. 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. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.