Worktop installation in St Quintin Park

Yes. St Quintin Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. 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 parking dictates the sequence, not the kitchen. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The only window is in the side wall facing into the side return, so the room reads darker than its size and the worktop is doing much of the reflecting. The day is planned backwards from the hall. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Nothing bears on plasterboard.

Garden routes carry their own hazards: a drain cover, a step up to a patio, wet decking, or a lawn that will not take a loaded trolley. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. Suction pads go on once the face is clean and dry, not before. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. Where there is no space, the plan starts the night before.

It is one of the three that come up most, though worktop fabrication comes up more. Nothing changes between them: same template, same workshop, same installers. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A shared house stays occupied while we work in it. 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. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Fire doors stay shut, so the carry route is longer.

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. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The step between rooms is packed out first. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward corner goes in first, not last. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Booked around the tenant, not around the owner.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. Nothing is carried past an obstruction that could have been moved.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. The van does not stay on a main road once it is empty.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.