Kitchen worktops in Wood Green

Yes. Three types side by side - Victorian terraced back-kitchens, 1930s flats with a genuine separate kitchen room of about 2.5m by 2.2m, and new towers where the kitchen is a fitted run along one wall of the living space with a stone-look island the developer priced as an upgrade. The towers push a lot of like-for-like replacement work. 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 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 stone is heavier going out than it looked coming in.

Victorian terrace, 1930s block of flats and 2020s residential tower. Steel windows sit in narrow reveals with a slim cill, which leaves almost no depth for an upstand to return into. A mansion block is a logistics job before it is a stone job. A new top on a settled run needs the run corrected first.

The High Road and the shopping city dominate the centre, with servicing yards, timed access and no kerbside space. Tower blocks need a booked delivery slot and a residents' lift with a weight limit; some will only take deliveries through a basement car park with a 2.1m height restriction. The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. The opening is measured on the diagonal, not across the frame.

Worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. The fitting day is scheduled to suit that rather than to suit the diary. The annexe and the main kitchen go in together. Basement car park headroom is the killer here - a Luton will not get in, so slabs come off a smaller vehicle or get walked from the street.

A dishwasher door on one side and an oven door on the other cannot both stand open in a narrow aisle, so which appliance goes where matters more in this shape than in any other. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Any overhang gets underpinned first. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. Material is from £110 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting are each quoted on their own line.

Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. The fitting day is arranged with whoever can actually give us access for the whole slot. Owner or agent, somebody has to be reachable. If we know the building when you book, the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice are worked into the day rather than found on it.

Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Thick external walls, deep window reveals and boxed risers mean the runs are templated to what is there rather than to a rectangle. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the job is a day, and what makes it a difficult day is the building. An old kitchen has moved, and the stone is cut to that.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Inter-war purpose-built blocks have curved external walls and steel windows, so a run along an outside wall is following a genuine curve rather than a bow. The lift car is usually too short and too low to take a full-length piece flat or on edge, so stone either goes up the communal stairs with their half-landings and winders, or the run is designed with joins that suit the staircase rather than the kitchen. The fabric gets checked while it is open.

Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. Pieces wait on trestles until the fitters call for them.

We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. A window at one end and a doorway at the other means one end of the run is lit from behind and the other is interrupted, so the two ends of the same length behave differently. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. The shape is measured again, not copied off the old top.