Kitchen worktops in Swiss Cottage

Yes. Dominated by purpose-built flats, so kitchens are self-contained rooms of 2.5-3.5m with services fixed on one wall and no scope to move the stack. Layouts are almost always galley or single-wall with a short return, and open plan only appears in the newer blocks. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The carry happens twice here, so the distance counts twice.

1930s mansion block, post-war block, Victorian villa conversion and modern apartment. There is usually a rounded internal corner where the plan turns, and stone does not follow a curve without being cut to it. This is the most managed day we do. Fixings go into what the wall actually is.

Finchley Road is a red route with no stopping, so loading happens on the side streets under a Monday to Friday CPZ. Most blocks have a lift, but the older 1930s cars are small and shallow and a 3m slab will not stand up inside one. A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The hall is cleared before the first piece comes off the trolley.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A tenant moves in on the date on the contract. Interwar block kitchens sit on a solid concrete floor with a boxed-in soil stack in the corner, so allow for a notch and a scribe rather than assuming a clean 90-degree return.

A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

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. One person is responsible for the door that morning. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. We would rather find it at template than on the morning, which is why the templater looks behind the units. Found at template, not on fit day.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. The original fitted dresser and the vent to outside air have often left their openings behind the units, unfilled and unrecorded. 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. Soft brick takes a different plug to blockwork.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Floors are concrete with a screed and a thin finish, so there is no give anywhere and packing the carcasses is the only way to get a plane. The lift is boarded and blanketed before the first piece leaves the van, and the porter is told the sequence. A floor that falls twenty millimetres is packed out first.

If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. That family has lived on a building site long enough.