Worktop installation in Shoreditch

Yes. Shoreditch is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC2A, E1, E2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. 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. Slack in the day gets spent on the street or on the fit. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Steel columns and downstands land where the frame put them, which is frequently in the middle of what would otherwise be a clean run. These read as easy from the outside and rarely are. Old floors get packed, not argued with. Where the structure cannot be cut into, the stone is relieved instead, and a relief that deep changes both the yield off the slab and how the piece is handled. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward metre takes the longest.

Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. We would sooner lift a gate off its hinges than force a piece past it. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop fabrication first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The void ends whether we have finished or not. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. Tenants are still in the building, so the stairs stay clear.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. One datum for every run in the room. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

An intruding steel column, a brick pier or a downstand breaks a run that would otherwise have been one clean piece. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. The scribe is cut on site or it is not cut. Confirm loading bay access and lift booking with the building's management, and clear any furniture from the mezzanine stairs or split-level approach. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Keys confirmed the week before, not the morning of.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Ceilings are high and every surface is hard, so cutting on site carries further here than in any other kind of building. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. The room is swept and the offcuts leave with us.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The original openings were sized for goods, but the residential doors dropped into them were not. Almost everything that makes a fitting day hard is a property of the building rather than of the stone. Packers under the carcass, not shims under the stone.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered up.