Worktop replacement in Woodside Park

Yes. Woodside Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N12. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. We stage the strip-out so the old tops leave in one trip rather than trickling out across the afternoon. It is a full day at the kerb, not a delivery. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These houses usually sit in their own grounds with a long approach, so the carry from van to door is longer than anything inside the building. The old island top is frequently sitting on units that were never fixed down, which is fine for laminate and not for stone. What is under the old top is the real question. Big islands with multiple cut-outs need lifting in one piece with at least four hands, and the floor has to be checked for level across the whole island footprint first.

Some of the best access in the borough: long driveways, wide verged roads, off-street turning space and clear side gates to the rear garden. The only obstacle is usually a mature hedge or a gate post narrowing the side route. Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. Worth remembering that the old tops have to come out the way the new ones come in, and a laminate run is easier to remove in one length than to carry in one. It sets what the day actually looks like.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop fabrication. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A day, not a project. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A day, not a project.

On a heavily veined stone the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab so the movement relates across the room. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. It is the usual surprise, and it is a known one. Have a fitter or joiner fix and level the island units beforehand, and get the sink, taps, hob and any range on site before templating so we cut to the actual appliances. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. If the carcasses are tired the honest answer is that stone will find that out, and it is better said before than after. Plumber either side of us.