Kitchen worktops in Shoreditch

Yes. Loft conversions with open-plan kitchens along a brick wall, 4m runs and large islands, sitting next door to Victorian estate flats with 2.4m galleys. The loft jobs are the ones that want a single stone across island, worktops and splashback with the veining matched across all three. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. 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.

warehouse conversion, Victorian model-dwelling estate, ex-local-authority block and new-build apartment. 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. The shell decides the piece; the slab decides only the yield.

One-way streets, weekend closures, market traffic and loading bans through the day, with permit parking enforced seven days in places. Converted buildings often have a goods lift or a loading door, which is worth confirming because the industrial stairwells are steep and open. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before.

Worktop fabrication and worktop installation, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Big island slabs live or die on the goods lift here, and if there is not one the island gets a mitred join and the client needs telling before anything is cut.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The managing agent books the lift, not the household. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. Every piece is drawn onto the slab before anything is cut, so the veining and the join positions are decided together rather than one after the other. Undersides are polished where the piece is seen from below.

The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Lease hours decide when the noisy part happens.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Exposed structure means the back edge is not a straight line at all, and a scribe of fifteen or twenty millimetres across a run is normal. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A bonded mitre goes down on one plane or not at all.