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. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb.

warehouse and cold-store loft conversion, Georgian townhouse around the square, converted meat trade building and recent apartment scheme. Original brickwork is uneven by ten millimetres or more across a bay, so the back edge is scribed to the actual face rather than to a line. These read as easy from outside and rarely are, because the flat entrance is tighter than the goods lift. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

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. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop fabrication, worktop installation and worktop templating, 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. The prep list is not optional. 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.

Seating overhangs past roughly 300mm will not carry on the carcass alone, so flat steel bar or a plywood substrate has to be built into the units first. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. The bench proves it before the van does. 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. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Machined to the real line. 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 let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. A half-day of access is not a fitting day, and it is better to say so at booking than to find out at eleven. One visit, our own installers. 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.