Reception counters and desks in Ardleigh Green

Yes. Ardleigh Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM11. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. The tail lift needs pavement, not simply a space. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The original floor is timber over a deep ventilated void with air bricks right round the perimeter, and the extension slab butts straight up against it. 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. Protected finishes decide the fixings before the drawing is finished. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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. The scribe is cut in the shop, eased on site, and no further.

A loading bay or a red route puts a clock on the unload, so the pieces come off in the order they will be fitted rather than the order they were loaded. 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. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. Outside opening hours is usually when the kerb is free.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop installation and worktop fabrication. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Where an operator is fitting out several receptions, the counters come off one slab run so the desks read as a set rather than as neighbours. Card reader positions come from the operator, not the architect.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. A shallow shelf still needs a support run of its own. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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. Stone will not straighten joinery, and it will not forgive it either. 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. The householder is normally on site at template, and that is the right time to settle sink position, tap centres and overhang rather than agree them by email. 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. Reception fit-outs answer to a lease as much as to a drawing.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. 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.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. Two working surfaces at two heights, a return between them and clear knee space under the lower one: that is the shape almost every counter ends up being, whatever the front elevation promised. Reception work is quiet work, done to a building already open.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. A lobby is one of the few places a piece can be staged, so the counter comes in early and stands on trestles until the carcass is ready for it. Where the lift will not take it, the join is designed rather than risked.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. The public side and the staff side take different details.