Worktop fabrication in South Hampstead

Yes. South Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6, NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. Where unloading has to happen in one go, the load order is planned so nothing has to come off twice. It is decided in the yard, not at the kerb. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Settled on the drawing, cut once. Winder stairs are worse than narrow ones for slab work because the effective diagonal shrinks at the turn, so size pieces off the tightest tread rather than the landing.

Permit bays fill early and many villas sit back behind long front paths, so the carry is 15-25 metres before you even reach the door. No lifts in the conversions, and the original staircases are generous in width but have winders at the turn. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. So the nesting is worked to the measured route first and to the slab second. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Cutting several kitchens from different slabs and calling them matched is where firms get caught out. Proven on the bench before dispatch. 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. Pieces are dry-assembled and checked on the bench before anything is loaded. Nested for the job in front of us.

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. A join that lands in the wrong place cannot be moved once the cut-outs are machined, so it is settled on the drawing. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. Machined to the real line. The range or Aga, the sink and the tap all need to be confirmed by model before nesting, because their clearances and hole positions set where the island can be cut. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. Changing an appliance after the nest is set means recutting the piece, not adjusting it. Dry-assembled before it leaves.