Kitchen worktops in Upper Edmonton

Yes. A lot of the stock here is converted - a three-bed terrace split into two flats, or a flat over a shop on Fore Street. Kitchens are squeezed into former bedrooms or the back addition, giving awkward 1.8m to 2.4m runs with the sink under a window that no longer lines up with the units. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. A van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

Victorian terrace, flat above shop and post-war infill block. The structure below is commercial, so the floor is often timber over a shop ceiling and the load path under an island is worth thinking about. Chipboard carcasses under the sink swollen from a slow leak will not take stone and get replaced before fit day. Sound carcasses are the one condition.

Fore Street is a busy bus corridor with loading bans through the day and shopfront deliveries competing for the kerb. Flats over shops are reached by a separate street door and a straight steep stair with a tight turn at the top. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. We plan the strip-out and the carry as one movement so the kitchen is only out of use for a single day. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating, in that order. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. The carcasses have to be sound, because stone is several times the weight of what is coming off. A day, not a project. Landlord refits dominate, so expect worn units that will not take a heavy stone - price for re-fixing or replacing carcass rails as part of the job.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. The laser plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Where the owner is not local, the decisions happen remotely, so photographs and a clear itemised drawing carry more weight than a showroom visit ever would. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. 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.