Kitchen worktops in Smithfield

Yes. Loft conversions in former market and warehouse buildings give big open plans with island runs of 3-4m under high ceilings, often with exposed brick and cast-iron columns landing awkwardly close to the run. The Georgian houses around the square are the opposite - narrow, listed, with kitchens at basement or ground of 2.4-3m and floors that are anything but level. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. 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 and cold-store loft conversion, Georgian townhouse around the square, converted meat trade building and recent apartment scheme. 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. A wall that leans is machined to the lean.

The market end operates through the night and early morning with lorry movements and cleaning, so an early start clashes with trade rather than helping you, and mid-morning is the better window. Warehouse conversions frequently retain a wide goods lift or a loading door with a hoist beam, which if it is still usable is the easiest way to get a long piece up. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. 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. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Plot after plot, the same fitting sequence. Cast-iron columns in these lofts are never quite where the drawing says, so scribe the island around the column rather than trusting a plan dimension.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Edge work on a return matches edge work on a length. A deep scribe comes out of the nest, so how far the stone has to be relieved changes which part of the slab the piece is cut from. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The alcove piece is dry-laid before the run is. 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.

Access in a tenanted flat depends on the tenant, so the template and fitting dates are agreed with whoever actually holds the keys. 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.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. Offcut sizes are decided before the first cut.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. 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. A century of movement is taken out at the bench.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. A downstand over a run caps wall unit height before it caps anything else, and the splashback then takes its height from the steel rather than from the units. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Packers go under the carcass, never under the stone.

What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. 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. Managed buildings allow deliveries through the lift only between set hours, and a day that overruns them finishes with the last piece still on the pavement. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.