Kitchen worktops in Temple Fortune

Yes. Flats above the distinctive shopping parades have small, awkwardly shaped kitchens set into the roof and gable spaces with sloping ceilings that rule out wall units above part of the run. The surrounding houses are comfortable interwar semis where the kitchen is knocked through to the dining room for a 3.6m run and a peninsula. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Arts and Crafts style parade with flats above, 1920s-30s semi and purpose-built mansion block. A side alley and a back door mean most pieces go in whole, and it is the alley width rather than the front door that decides it. The carry is the easy part; the plaster around the old breast and the packing over a moved floor are not. The slow parts are slow for a reason.

Flats over the parades are reached by narrow shared stairs from the rear yards, with no lift and a turn at each landing; Finchley Road frontage has loading restrictions and constant bus traffic. 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. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Sloping ceilings over part of the run mean the slab cannot be tilted upright at that end, so it has to enter the room already close to horizontal.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. The join is the last thing finished. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Plotted, not estimated. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

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. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. Plumber either side of us. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.