Restaurant and cafe table tops in Anerley

Yes. Anerley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE20. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. A table order comes off the van as a stack of frames and a pallet of bases, and both of those need somewhere to stand before either is moved. Counted off at the tail lift where the standing is short. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

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. The trade on streets like these sits in a parade of narrow shopfronts, so the dining room is long and thin and the covers are won by the width of the gangway rather than by the size of the room. Flats above set the hours the work can happen in. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. None of that is scribed against on a table, since it stands clear of every wall, so the awkwardness moves from the back edge to the floor and the base. An awkward corner takes a made shape.

A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. A table order is many small pieces rather than one long one, so the route decides how many trips the delivery takes rather than how big anything can be. Wrapping stays on until the pedestal is standing. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. The van stays until the last piece is on its base.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Table work arrives as a batch by its nature, and a batch means one slab run rather than the same colour ordered twice a year apart. The count is agreed before the slab is committed. 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. A room opening in a second phase is worth naming now, while the material is still on the ground and a match is a telephone call. Lead time is the reason the date is set early.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. What decides the cut list here is the seating plan rather than the room shape, and one repeated table size nests far better than six one-offs. The gangway sets the dimension, not the drawing. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. A column, a boxed duct or a fixed bench in a dining room is designed around with a shape cut to suit rather than notched on site. Feet are wound out where the floor falls away. Send the seating plan with the gangway widths marked, and bring in one of the bases or the maker’s drawing so the bolt centres can be measured properly. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. A table top bolted to a base you already own is loose furniture rather than a fixture, so it leaves with the operator at the end of a term. A brand standard is followed to the letter or not at all.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. 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. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. Fixed seating sets the dimension it faces, so a piece against a bench is drawn to the bench instead of to a standard size. The base carries the weight and the floor carries the base.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Where the standing is short the pieces are counted off at the tail lift against the plan rather than checked once they are already inside. A quiet hour is worth more to us than a close bay.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. The joint where a peninsula meets the main run wants a gable directly under it, and where the units do not offer one, steel goes in to carry that joint instead. Rounds waste the corners of their blank where squares do not, so the mix of shapes moves the slab count more than the number of covers does. Offcuts from a counter become the smaller pieces.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. The measurement that governs everything here is the gangway, because it caps the diameter before anybody has chosen a colour. A shallow room decides the diameter early.