Reception counters and desks in Albany Park

Yes. Albany Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are DA5, DA14. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. The tail lift needs pavement, not simply a space. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Solid walls with no cavity have often been dry-lined internally at some point, and the lining thickness varies from wall to wall. Practices in this stock are usually converted houses on or behind an interwar parade: a dental surgery, a veterinary practice or a small office with its reception in what was the front room. The lobby was finished by somebody else, and the counter joins it. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. A counter is worse off than a kitchen here, because it usually stands clear of the wall and has nothing behind it to hide a gap. Nothing on a counter is corrected with sealant.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. A counter top is one long piece with no run of cabinets to break it, so the route decides the join count before the sightlines get a vote. A long top on edge sweeps wider than the crew carrying it. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Outside opening hours is usually when the kerb is free.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. 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. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. A desk somebody sits at all day is specified for wear. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. A fit-out programme puts the counter last, behind the joiner and the electrician, which is exactly when the least time is left to template it. Card reader positions come from the operator, not the architect.

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. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. Where the counter turns, the pattern turns with it. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. What a counter is scribed to is the joiner's carcass rather than the plaster, which is why it is templated after the carcass is fixed and never before. The template is taken to the carcass as built. Confirm whether the reception is at ground level or up the stair, and send the carcass drawing with the chimney breast and any bay recorded on it. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. The same split runs through commercial property: a landlord fitting out a shell and a tenant fitting out their own reception want different things from one counter. The counter stays when the tenant goes, and is chosen accordingly.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Rear extensions on these sit on shallow foundations, and the crack at the junction with the original wall tells you which way it has moved. A reception counter answers to the building it stands in more than to the drawing, because it is fabricated to a carcass somebody else has already built and fixed. Reception work is quiet work, done to a building already open.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. Twist in a carcass shows first at the transaction shelf.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. Whoever holds the lease usually holds the loading bay.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. The window over the sink sits at about worktop height, so the run is set out around the sill and the reveal rather than under them. What decides the piece sizes is the lobby and the way into it, since a counter top runs longer than a kitchen worktop and has no cabinet run to break it up. The height that matters most is the low one.