Kitchen worktops in Canonbury

Yes. Larger period houses where the kitchen has usually been moved into a rear extension at garden level, giving a squared-off room with a 3.5-4m run and a true island. The conversion flats off the main streets are the opposite job, a single 2.4m run in a former back bedroom with the boiler above it. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. The fitting slot is set around it, which is why we ask about it when the date is booked and not before we leave the yard. The day is built around that window.

Georgian square terrace, Victorian villa, Edwardian terrace and conversion flat. The rear room is generous with a chimney breast in one corner, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends whatever the plan drew. We measure the front door, the hall width and the turn into the kitchen before anything comes off the van, because a 3m piece has to swing through that corner on edge and stone does not bend to help you. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Traffic filters close several through routes and the CPZ is permit-heavy, so the van often stops a street away from the address. Long front gardens and railed steps make for a ten to twenty metre carry before the door, then a straight hall to the rear. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop design & quotation, 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. Comparing quotes only works when they itemise the same things, and this is where the differences usually hide. Material is the slab only, and it says so. Rear extensions here are frequently new build butted against old brick, so allow a movement gap at the junction rather than running one uninterrupted top across the old and new wall line.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Joins are pulled with suction clamps and finished flush, then colour-matched, which is the last thing done rather than the first. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. Eased in, never forced. 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.

The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Material is quoted as a supply range and the labour lines separately, because an installed rate per square metre is not a real number. Written to be read by whoever is paying. 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.