Worktop installation in St John's Wood

Yes. St John's Wood is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW8. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. A market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. A drive and a red route make two different fitting days. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A townhouse is tall and narrow with the kitchen at the bottom, so every piece goes down a staircase rather than along a hall. What costs time is the distance from where the van can park to the door, often down a long drive or across gravel, so we plan the carry with enough hands and board the route where it crosses gravel or lawn. The slow parts are slow for a reason. Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Carcasses get packed level before anything is offered 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. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. The first hand off the van is the one holding the clock.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop fabrication. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A slipped slot takes the next one with it. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Six flats, six days, one kitchen at a time.

It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. The island is set against the perimeter, not a wall. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. A forced back edge cracks weeks later. Give us the hardest, shortest approach to the door you can, clear of parked cars, and warn us of any soft ground, steps or gravel on the route. Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The room cleared before the crew arrives.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Mark it, lift it, cut it, offer it up again.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. The stair to the lower ground floor has a turn at the bottom and a low soffit above it, and both are measured before anything is nested. Getting in is straightforward, so the day is spent dry-laying and scribing to walls that have never been straight. The house sets the order of work.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Rooms are formally proportioned with deep reveals and shutter boxes, so runs under windows are templated to what is actually there. The carry from where the van can stand to the door is boarded wherever it crosses gravel, grass or a stone floor. Levelled first, then set, then sealed.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.