Kitchen worktops in Enfield Town

Yes. Big Victorian and Edwardian villas off Chase Side and Church Street usually have the kitchen in the old rear addition, so most jobs are a knock-through into the dining room giving an L-shape with a 3.2m main run and a short return under the window. The town-centre flats above the shops are the opposite - straight 2.4m single runs with an integrated fridge at one end. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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.

Victorian villa, Edwardian bay-fronted terrace, 1930s semi and 2000s town-centre flat. The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. 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.

The one-way system round the market and Church Street has timed loading only, and the multi-storey heights rule out a Luton, so slabs get walked in from a metered bay on the side roads. Villa properties usually have a decent front path but a step up at the threshold and a 90-degree turn into the hall. Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. 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 replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation, 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. The units stay and only the surface changes, so the whole job is one day rather than a kitchen refit. Sound carcasses or it does not go ahead. Anything pre-1900 round here has settled - dry-lay the template and expect a 10-15mm scribe against the chimney breast rather than trusting the wall.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. The back edge is eased in progressively rather than offered up once and forced. It is the slow part of the day and it should be. 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. 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.