Kitchen worktops in Finsbury Park

Yes. Dominated by terraces converted into two or three flats, so the typical job is a small kitchen in a rear addition or a former bedroom at 2.4-3m, with a wall-hung boiler sitting directly over the run. Ground-floor and garden flats get a little more room and occasionally a short peninsula. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. One trip is always better than three.

Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace, conversion flat and post-war block. Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. In most Victorian terraces the kitchen sits in the back addition, so you get a narrow galley with one outside wall and nothing square to work off. What is under the old top is the real question.

Seven Sisters Road and Stroud Green Road are busy with bus lanes and loading restrictions, and the residential streets are permit-only with very high occupancy. Shared entrances, bikes in the hall and stairs to the first or second floor are standard on nearly every job. 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. With no room to turn, the old top gets cut up in the kitchen instead, which is dusty work and needs the room emptied first. That is agreed before a plumber is booked.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop installation, in that order. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. With a boiler and its pipework over the run you get cut-outs and a reduced clear splashback height, so measure to the boiler casing rather than to the wall units.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. Old laminate has often been holding a run square for years, and taking it off shows what the units were really doing. Carcasses have to be sound first. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. On the day it means dry-laying, marking, and cutting the scribe on site before anything is bonded. Dry-lay, mark, cut, then bond. 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.

Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after. 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.