Worktop fabrication in Ravenscourt Park

Yes. Ravenscourt Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. A long walk from the van earns heavier corner protection. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are big rooms with long perimeter runs and an island, so level has to hold across the whole floor rather than along one wall. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Every join over a gable, clear of every cut-out. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The template drawing carries the real geometry through to the saw, and the piece is machined to it rather than trimmed to it later. Yield drops the moment the back edge stops being straight.

Suction lifters earn their keep on a straight flight and become a liability on a winder, where a handle standing out from the face is one more thing to catch on a wall. 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. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. The frame is filled back to front when the bay is booked short.

Yes. On the research for this patch it is the first of the three jobs listed, ahead of worktop replacement. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. The spares are cut while the slab is still open. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. One kept offcut saves a whole flat later.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. Cut it square where it should be radiused and the piece will fail on the lift, not in the kitchen. Left and right alcove pieces are marked and stay marked. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The signature on the drawing carries the cost of it.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. No payment is due before the template. A utility or boot room usually takes a second run of stone, templated with the kitchen and fitted after it. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Real dimensions go on the cut list, not nominal ones.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. Timber nosings chip under a slipped edge, so the treads are covered along the whole flight rather than only at the landings. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. Polishing a piece that cannot reach the room wastes a day.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut.

How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Repeat pieces are cut from one drawing set, so what arrives on the bench is the same every time. Repeat runs come off a jig, not a fresh setout.