Kitchen worktops in Arnos Grove

Yes. Semis around Bowes Road with the original small rear kitchen still in place in a lot of cases, plus a fair number of converted maisonettes where the kitchen is a narrow galley in the back addition, 600mm clear between runs. Galley layouts here mean two parallel tops rather than one long one. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. 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. We would rather ask than guess.

1930s semi, 1930s purpose-built flat and post-war maisonette. External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. 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. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Bowes Road and the North Circular approach carry heavy traffic with no stopping, so access comes off the quieter residential streets. Maisonettes have their own front door and a straight stair, usually with a tight turn at the top. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The fitting day is planned backwards from that point, before anything comes off the van. It gets checked before the first piece is lifted.

Worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, in that order. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. A plumber either side of us. In a true galley the two runs have to be templated together - if one wall bows the gap closes and the appliance doors stop clearing.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Dry-lay first, always. 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. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. That is why the visit takes two or three hours. 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. Sound carcasses are the condition. 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.