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. 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. 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 day is built around that window. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. The day is planned backwards from the hall. That is the shape of the day. Because the side return has been built over, there is no side access left on most of these houses, so hall width and the stair newel decide the maximum piece.

Conservation-area streets with no dropped kerbs and permit parking enforced all day, and side returns are built out, so almost every slab goes through the front door and along a narrow hall with a return at the stairs. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop design & quotation and worktop templating. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Sealed before we leave.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Eased in, never forced. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. Protection goes down first.