Kitchen worktops in Somers Town

Yes. Interwar and post-war flats with small purpose-built kitchens, typically a 2.4m run with a second short return and a window over the sink. Many still have the original layout including a larder recess that clients want turned into usable worktop. 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. The day is built around that window.

interwar council block, post-war estate, Victorian terrace remnant and modern infill. The original kitchen was a small service room, so what is there now is a knock-through and the junction between the two floors is rarely level. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Estate courtyards with bollards and controlled gates, narrow internal stairwells, and lifts only in the taller blocks. Euston Road and Pancras Road are red routes, so unloading happens inside the estate or it does not happen at all. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The prep list is not optional. Larder and meter recesses in these blocks generate a lot of small returns and cut-outs, so the fabrication list runs longer than the overall run lengths suggest.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. 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.

These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Protection goes down first. 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.