Kitchen worktops in Bethnal Green

Yes. Most work is in the back addition of a small terrace, so you get an L or a galley of about 2.4m to 3m with a rear window in the middle of the run. The ones that have infilled the side return end up with a single long wall run plus a short island or peninsula, and that is where the second slab goes. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. We aim for the first slot of the day where parking is tight, because that is when the street is emptiest. It is why the arrival time is what it is.

1890s LCC tenement block, Victorian two-up two-down terrace, 1960s council tower and 2000s warehouse conversion. A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. No stone is ever cut from a plan.

Terraced streets are permit-only Monday to Friday with no forecourts, and Columbia Road and its feeder streets are effectively closed by the Sunday flower market, so schedule around it. The 1890s tenement blocks have winding stone stairs, no lift and half-landing turns that a full 3m piece will not pass, so plan for a joint or a hoist. 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 templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

Worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation, in that order. 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. Old tops out in the morning, new stone down and sealed the same afternoon. A plumber either side of us. Half the terraces here have been through two or three refits and the rear walls are out of square by 15-20mm, so nothing gets cut off drawings without a physical template.

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. Join positions and vein direction are marked on the template drawing before it leaves site. The drawing leaves site complete. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. It is recorded on the drawing with the run dimensions so the workshop is not guessing. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. 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.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. 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. 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.