Kitchen worktops in Ruislip

Yes. Substantial semis and detached houses with rear kitchen-diners built around an island or peninsula. In-frame shaker doors and 30mm quartz are the default, usually as part of a side-return-plus-rear wrap extension. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. An early slot is the cheapest parking arrangement there is.

1930s Metroland semi, interwar detached, village conservation area cottage and postwar infill. A side return glazed over gives the room a second aspect and a second floor level, because the old external threshold is still under the finish. Access is usually the easy part here, as most of these have a side gate and a back door straight into the kitchen, so we carry down the side alley rather than through the house and keep the mess outside. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.

The village High Street is conservation-controlled with short-stay parking only, but the residential avenues have long drives and gated entrances with room for a full A-frame. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

Worktop installation, in that order. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. One kitchen out of use, never the whole house. The wrap-around extension produces an L that is longer than a slab in both directions, so the choice is a joint under the hob or a joint at the corner, and that gets decided at template.

Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The last piece in has the least tolerance left. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Level is checked across the room, not along one wall. Material is quoted supply only from £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are given their own lines rather than one combined figure.

Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. Tell us what the building is when you book, and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are planned in rather than discovered.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Internal walls are hollow clay block or stud rather than solid brick, so two points a metre apart on the same wall want two different fixings. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Overhangs get brackets before anyone leans on them.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Every re-grip is a chance to chip a piece, so they are planned out.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. 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. A crew waiting for a space is a crew being paid to wait.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. A serving hatch through to the dining room is common, and closing one up leaves a panel of newer wall exactly where the run passes. Protection down, dry-lay, scribe, then bond: the order matters more in a difficult room than an easy one. A settled floor adds an hour and the day allows for it.