Kitchen worktops in Totteridge

Yes. The biggest kitchens anywhere in the three boroughs: islands of 3.5m or more, twin runs on opposing walls, butler's pantries and back kitchens, and often a separate catering or staff kitchen that is fitted to the same standard. Book-matched slabs, waterfall ends and full-height stone splashbacks are the norm rather than an upgrade. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. It rarely changes what we cut, but it does change how the pieces are stacked and strapped for the run out. We pack for the tail lift we are actually going to use.

large detached on green belt frontage, gated modern mansion and period village houses. A range or an Aga in an original recess is usually immovable, so the run is designed around it and the clearances come from the appliance. Islands here regularly run longer than a slab, so the join is nested to sit over an internal gable and positioned so it does not run through the hob cut-out, and on a heavily veined stone we nest the island and the back run together so the movement relates across the room. A settled corner leaves the bench as a real angle.

Long private driveways, electric gates and gravel that a loaded trolley sinks into, so the last stretch is usually a straight carry. Access has to be arranged with security or a house manager rather than by knocking on the day. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop fabrication 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. That family has lived on a building site long enough. Book-matched pieces have to be dry-laid and viewed by the client before final fixing, so build an extra visit into the programme instead of expecting sign-off on the day.

Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. The nest is laid out around that, with joins placed over cabinet gables and kept clear of every cut-out. Undersides are polished where the piece is seen from below. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The slot belongs to whoever can open the door. Describe the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the schedule rather than met on the day.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. Ceiling beams cross the room at a height that decides where a piece can be stood on edge and where it cannot. The joins here are chosen rather than forced, so they go where the veining and the gables want them. Nothing is machined square because a plan says square.

If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Sliding or folding doors take the whole garden wall, so a long stretch of the room has glass where a wall would otherwise carry the units. All of that is settled at the nesting stage, because a machined piece cannot be adjusted afterwards. Machined in the shop, where it belongs.

Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Access is agreed with whoever is still living there.

A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A corbel on show under an overhang is a decision about how the piece looks from a stool, so it gets settled alongside the edge profile rather than left to whoever fits it. Pieces are dry-assembled on the bench before dispatch so the corners are known to close before they leave the workshop. That is nested before any glass goes on the saw.