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. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. A replacement is a two-way job, with old tops going out and new stone coming in, so the van needs to stay put across the whole day. Old tops out and new stone in, both through the same gap.

Victorian terrace, flat above shop and post-war infill block. The kitchen is usually at the back over the rear of the shop, which makes it the furthest point from the street door. Post-war terraces have small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run, so runs are short and joins are rare, but there are usually two corners and a window cill to work around in a couple of metres. The building has kept moving; the new template catches up.

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. A fitted stair carpet is either lifted or covered, because grit trodden into it under work boots does more harm than the carry itself. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The way in is walked with a tape before the van is opened.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Handover day is a hard stop. 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.

Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Height change is checked before we cut. 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. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Supply only, material begins at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on separate lines rather than as one number.

Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. The whole slot, or the stone waits. 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.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. These flats have been reconfigured more than once, so the kitchen often sits in what was a bedroom with services run a long way to reach it. The units are often 1970s or 80s and only around 500mm deep, so a standard 600mm stone top overhangs at the front and the doors and drawer fronts need checking against it. What is behind the old splashback decides the new one.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. 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 front rooms sit over the shop window with a structural beam beneath them, and the floor either side of that beam is not at one level. Chipboard carcasses under the sink swollen from a slow leak will not take stone and get replaced before fit day. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Offered up twice, bonded once.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. 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 waste run is planned, not improvised.