Reception counters and desks in Battersea Park

Yes. Battersea Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW11. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Where the goods entrance is round the back, the carry is priced from there. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

External walls are thick and the run under the window sits in a deep reveal that has to be templated rather than assumed square. A block of this age carries a porter's desk in the entrance hall, and that hall is usually a protected interior with panelling, an original floor and finishes nobody is allowed to fix into. A converted front room gives a lobby with no depth to it. A brick pier standing into the run divides it in two, and the join goes against the pier where a clear wall would have needed no join at all. 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 front edge runs straight whatever the wall behind it does.

A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. 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. Two heights means two carries, and the low one is not the difficult one. 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. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. An early slot buys an empty street and an empty lobby at once.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. 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. Quartz suits let property well: no sealing, no annual maintenance, and nothing an incoming tenant has to be told to look after. 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.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. 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.

Where the structure cannot be cut into, the stone is relieved instead, and a relief that deep changes both the yield off the slab and how the piece is handled. 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. Where the plaster bows, the counter is drawn away from it. Measure the lift car internally, photograph the stair turn and the hall, and confirm with the managing agent what may and may not be fixed into. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. 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. Somebody has to book the lift, and it is rarely the receptionist.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Freeholder consent, a works agreement and proof of insurance are often wanted before a van is allowed to unload. 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. A counter is measured in the lobby it will stand in.

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. Tiling bonded to the wall behind usually comes away with the old top, so that wall is agreed beforehand. 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. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. Waiting time on a counter job is the most expensive hour of it.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. An external corner on a counter is seen from both sides at once, so it is mitred rather than butted and the pattern is carried round it. The public side and the staff side take different details.

A piece is never laid flat across a gap while it is moved, because that is how stone cracks unaided. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Spindles and a newel cap stand proud of the string, so the usable width on a turn is measured to the handrail rather than to the wall behind it. The lower transaction shelf is short and easily handled; it is the upper counter that has to be walked in on edge and turned at every corner. Protection stays down until the last piece is bedded.