Kitchen worktops in Shad Thames

Yes. Almost entirely converted warehouse apartments - split-level or double-height, with the kitchen run pinned along one wall between structural brick piers and cast-iron columns, so runs get broken into 1.8m to 2.4m sections rather than one continuous sweep, and breakfast bars replace full islands where the floor plate is narrow. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. The frame is filled back to front when the bay is booked short.

1880s tea and spice warehouse, 1980s Butlers Wharf conversion and 1990s riverside block. Windows are large industrial openings with deep sills, and a run finishing at one meets a reveal a full brick deep. The kitchen is open plan and the island is often long enough to need a join, and it sits in the middle of the room where every edge is visible, so the join goes over a gable and usually under the hob line where the eye does not follow it. Lath and plaster is cut for, never cut into.

The street itself is cobbled and shaded by the overhead gantry bridges with no room to park a van beside the door; lifts are small original goods lifts or tight passenger cars, so oversized pieces have to be planned to fit the car diagonally or go up the stairs on edge. A car will often hold more than its doors will admit, and it is the clear width between the door edges that a piece actually has to pass through. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Four hands or eight is settled before the tail lift drops.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Measure the lift and the stair turn before you cut anything - a slab that fits the kitchen but not the lift is a wasted day here.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut. Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Where a letting agent sits between us and the owner the approval passes through two sets of hands, so a quote has to be clear enough to forward without a covering explanation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A locked door costs the day, not an hour. 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.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Services run on the surface in these buildings, so conduit and pipework cross the wall behind the units and stand proud of it. Access is by goods lift or a shared stair with a hard turn onto the landing, and both cap the piece length, so the nesting is done to the measured car or turn rather than to the slab. The piece is made for the room the builders left.

The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. Handling counts are decided here, not on the pavement.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Thickness has to be known before quoting, since it decides the edge, the cut-outs and what the units carry. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.