Kitchen worktops in Whitehall Park

Yes. Hillside Victorian terraces and villas with generous rear rooms, so the kitchen usually sits at the back of the ground floor with garden access on a 3.5m run and a peninsula. Conservation-area rules keep the rear elevations fairly intact, so extensions are modest and the original room shape survives. A suspension is charged by the bay and by the day, so the number of metres asked for is worth getting right the first time. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

Victorian terrace, Victorian villa, Edwardian terrace and conversion flat. Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. The day is planned backwards from the hall. Settlement is packed out, never levered out.

Steep, quiet streets with permit parking and limited turning space, where the van position matters more than the distance to the door. Front paths climb to the entrance, so everything is carried uphill on a slope before it reaches a level floor. A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop installation, in that order. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. Sealed before we leave. On a sloped approach an A-frame is a liability, so plan a two-person flat carry with a staging point inside the door before the slab leaves the van.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is cut on site if the bench can do it. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Sealant seals. It does not fit. Supply-only material opens at £110 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line rather than as a single number.

Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. A cleared crew arrives with its paperwork done. Say what the building is at the booking stage and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice become part of the plan rather than a surprise.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. 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 back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. The awkward metre takes the longest.

The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. The fitting day is planned backwards from all of it, before the first piece comes off the van. Levelled under the units first.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The combination boiler hangs on whichever wall happened to be external, and that decision has already used up a stretch of the only wall the run wanted. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. A dry-lined wall hides a void, and the void gets bridged.

A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. A galley is levelled as one plane, both sides together.