Worktop installation in St James's

Yes. St James's is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1A, SW1Y. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. On an event day the controls are wider, tighter and enforced harder than the signage suggests on any other morning of the week. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are thick, lime-plastered and built in a soft brick, so they take a scribe well and take a fixing badly. The day is planned backwards from the hall, and the scribing takes longer than the carry. That is the shape of the day. Most of this is commercial-adjacent work, so surfaces need to take heat and heavy use in a small area - a hard sintered surface beats a resin quartz next to a commercial hob.

Security zones around Whitehall and the royal parks bring road closures and vehicle checks, and ceremonial events shut the area at short notice. Buildings are listed with managed access, and deliveries generally go through a rear service entrance with a signed-in trolley route. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. One visit, with the sink and hob seated and sealed before we leave. 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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Access for the whole slot, or a different day.