Worktop installation in Victoria

Yes. Victoria is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1E, SW1P. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. 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 van that has to move mid-fit costs the best part of an hour and takes a man off the tools to do it. Forty metres of carry changes the shape of the whole day. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Walls are solid brick with lime plaster and a hard skim over the top, and that skim comes away in sheets when old tiles are taken back. This is the most managed day we do. One datum, taken off the highest point of the floor. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. The awkward corner goes in first, not last.

Bollards, planters and a one-way service road can turn what looks like a ten-metre carry into a fifty-metre one. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. We would rather start at seven than argue with a warden.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. 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. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. A date agreed in spring is a hope by autumn. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Where the window is fixed there is no second day to fall back on, so the prep list matters more than usual. Book us when the units exist, not when they are ordered.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Mitres are pulled together, never pushed. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Rushing that is what leaves a gap you look at every morning for fifteen years. Fixings find the studs or they find nothing. Have the works booking confirmed with the managing agent or porter in advance, with the lift slot and any parking permit or bay suspension in place. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Communal floors are protected the same as private ones.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Two men and a long carry is a different day from two men and a drive, and the crew is sized on that. A booked bay only helps if it is empty when we arrive.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. The barrier, the entry code and the estate rules decide when a van can get near the door, and none of that is negotiable on the day. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. The crew size follows from it.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. This is a logistics job before it is a stone job, and the lift car is usually the single biggest constraint on the design. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Nothing is cut in the room if the shop could do it.

It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. The porter has to be booked, the goods lift protected with the block's own blankets or our own boards, and communal carpet and stair runners covered from the entrance to the flat door before a single piece moves. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.