Kitchen worktops in Regent's Park

Yes. Two extremes within a few hundred metres: listed Nash terraces where the kitchen is in the basement or lower ground with vaulted ceilings and a service stair, and the neighbouring post-war estate with small standard galleys. In the listed houses the room is deep, cool and awkwardly shaped, and the layout works around structural walls that cannot be touched. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Nash stucco terrace, Regency villa, post-war estate and mansion block. Original panelling and shutter boxes stand out from the structural wall, so the face the units meet is joinery rather than plaster. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The age of the house sets the pace of it.

The Outer Circle has strict waiting restrictions and no loading in front of the terraces, so access to the listed houses is by an area stair or a rear service entrance. The post-war estate has its own internal roads and lifts, which is a completely different set of rules on the same day. Counting hands matters more than counting metres on a staircase, because a piece two people lift off a van still wants three on the flight and a fourth watching the trailing corner. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop installation, in that order. 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. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. In the Nash terraces you are working under listed consent against vaulted, uneven basement walls where nothing is square, so template on site and expect a scribe on every back edge.

A run that stops in mid-air at the open end needs a finished end rather than a cut one, and that end takes the same edge work as the whole front. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Support first, stone second. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The overhang is checked again once the feet are set. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A void between tenancies has no spare days in it. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. 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. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A scribe is a cut. It is not an adjustment.

Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The whole run is dry-fitted before any adhesive is opened.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. A basement is often reached by its own door under the front steps, and that door is smaller than anything else on the route. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Georgian houses put the kitchen in a basement or a rear closet wing, and the stairs down to it are the tightest part of the whole route. Pieces are stood on edge for the turns and carried flat for the straights, and that sequence is agreed before anything comes off the van. The slow parts are slow for a reason.