Kitchen worktops in Woodberry Down

Yes. Largely rebuilt as new apartment blocks, so kitchens are modern, open-plan and square, with a 3-3.5m run and a peninsula and units that arrive level and true. The remaining older blocks are the opposite, small fixed galleys of about 2.4m with no room to change anything. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. 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.

post-war estate block, new-build tower, 1950s low-rise and modern apartment. Concrete panel walls bow noticeably over the length of a run, so the template picks up the real line and the back edge is cut to follow it. The carry is the constraint. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

A managed development with booked loading bays, service lifts and delivery windows, while the surrounding roads including Seven Sisters Road are busy with limited stopping. The access rules are strict but predictable once they are arranged. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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, worktop replacement and worktop templating, in that order. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first. These are logistics jobs rather than scribing jobs, since the walls are true and the effort goes into lift booking, floor protection and hitting the agreed access window.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. The units stay, the surface changes. 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 old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. The laminate has been covering it up. 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.

A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A replacement keeps the units and changes the surface, which is the least disruptive way to do this in an occupied property. 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.