Worktop installation in Soho

Yes. Soho is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W1D, W1F. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. 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. 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. It is why the arrival time is what it is. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. The day is planned backwards from the hall. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Winder stairs in these old houses mean the maximum piece that will physically turn is often around 1.8m - design the joints for the staircase first and the kitchen second.

The hardest access in the borough. No parking at all, pedestrianised sections, servicing windows that clash with restaurant deliveries, and 18th-century houses with 700mm doors and steep dogleg stairs with winders and no landing. Night-time economy means the working window is genuinely 8am to lunchtime. Stone goes up on edge, and it is the half-landing turn rather than the flight itself that sets the maximum piece. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. The prep list is not optional.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Dry-lay first, always. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Eased in, never forced. Clear the full hall and stairs route of furniture, bikes, coats and stair-gates, and keep the front door propped and unobstructed for the carry. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. 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. Protection goes down first.