Kitchen worktops in Hoxton

Yes. Georgian houses around the squares with small compartmented rooms, large post-war estates with standard galley kitchens, and a few converted industrial buildings with open-plan runs. Most of the work is replacement within the existing footprint rather than reconfiguration. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Waste is the part people forget: the old laminate or tired granite has to be walked back to the van and it does not get lighter. The waste run is planned, not improvised.

Georgian terrace, Victorian terrace, large post-war estate and warehouse conversion. The internal stair is usually a straight flight with a tight top landing, and it is the landing rather than the flight that is the limit. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. Walked, measured, protected, then lifted.

Estate courtyards with bollards, filtered residential streets, red route sections on the A10 edge and restrictions on Old Street to the south. Estate blocks have small lifts and long deck-access walkways to cross before you reach the door. Where the parking court sits behind the block the carry crosses open ground and gets boarded, because loaded trolleys and block paving do not agree. We walk the route with a tape and protect it end to end before the first piece is lifted. That is what the morning is planned around.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Same batch, same run, same day. Deck-access blocks mean a long exposed carry along an open walkway, so weather matters here in a way it does not elsewhere, and a slab on edge in a gust four floors up is the risk to design out.

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. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. 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. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door, communal or otherwise. Access for the whole slot, or a different day. 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.