Worktops in Temple Fortune

Yes. Temple Fortune is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW11. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Whatever the standing allows, the stone leaves that van finished, because every edge, cut-out and internal radius is machined at the works and none of it is open to reconsideration at the kerb. Nothing is ever colour matched outdoors under a grey sky. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The original kitchen was a small rear room with a larder and a back door, and nearly all of them have since been opened into the dining room. These kitchens are usually knocked through to the dining room, so the surface is read from two sides at once and the figure has to carry across the pieces rather than restart at every join. Open-plan surfaces are furniture before they are work surfaces. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. Every notch and every scribe is machined into the piece before it leaves the works, and a hard sintered surface is the least forgiving of a tight internal corner, so one is always cut with a generous radius. Short lengths are where a full slab starts to pay for itself.

Pendant fittings over the stairwell and anything hung on the half-landing come down first, because a piece on edge sweeps a wider arc than the people carrying it. That caps the longest piece, and a run split into two lengths nests differently on the slab, which moves the yield and moves the figure with it. The seam is planned on the layout, not discovered in the room. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. A granite kitchen ends its day with a sealer, and a sealer wants a dry face and a quiet hour afterwards, so that hour is written into the day rather than borrowed from it. The film stays on the face until the last trade leaves.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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 several kitchens are ordered together the sensible move is to take them all off one batch, because two slabs of the same name bought six months apart will not sit happily in the same building. Order the stone against the room, never against the drawing. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Volume work tends to live at the entry end of the range, and the entry end is genuine stone rather than a compromise, since the lowest supply figure we quote is a sintered surface and not a thin laminate pretending to be one. Several kitchens at once should come off a single batch.

Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. An island is the piece that decides whether one slab covers the kitchen or two, and a second slab arrives as a step in the figure rather than a gentle slope. Where the shape is broken, a repeating pattern is worth money. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. A hob dropped into the middle of a length puts sustained warmth at the lip of a cut-out, and an engineered surface will yellow there across ten years where a natural one takes it without comment. The narrowest return in the kitchen is its weakest stone. Confirm the depth of the units, the total run lengths and whether an island or peninsula is going in, and tell us the colour temperature of the lighting. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. That changes which questions are worth asking about the stone, because somebody staying put wants to know how a honed face marks in five years and somebody selling wants to know how it photographs next spring. Repairability is a fair question to ask before choosing.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Adding an island is what moves most of these projects from one slab to two, and that jump is the single largest step in any worktop quotation. The entry end of the range is real stone, not a compromise.

A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A communal flight is out of use while a piece is on it, so the carry is timed so nobody is trying to pass on a half-landing. Where a seam becomes unavoidable the choice of stone starts to matter, because a fine even speckle closes a joint almost invisibly and a broad vein simply will not. The pieces either side of a break come off adjoining slab.

The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The plaster is a thick float and set over brick that has blown in patches, so a wall sounds solid in one place and hollow a hand-span away. Which stone belongs on top of all that is a separate question from the building itself, and it is the one with a figure attached, because supply alone runs from £110 to £550 per square metre before a single cut has been made. Speckle hides a working kitchen; a flat dark gloss advertises one.

A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The kitchen door opens inwards into the middle of a run, so the usable length of that wall stops well short of the corner. The surface is where the money actually moves: across the 181 kitchens fitted the median is £220 per square metre, and half of them land between £165 and £300. What the room does to the number is most of the number.