Restaurant and cafe table tops in Becontree

Yes. Becontree is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM8, RM9. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Barking and Dagenham. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. 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. A quiet hour is worth more to us than a close bay. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The first kitchen units were metal and screwed straight into the blockwork, and their plugs are still in the wall behind whatever plaster went over them. The trade in this stock is a row of units under a block: a roller shutter, a shallow room behind it and a paved forecourt in front with bollards across the approach. A goods lift takes a frame and saves a morning. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. Weight low, spread wide, and it stays put.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. 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. Nothing is stacked flat on a dining room floor. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Nothing is left on a pavement while a space is found.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. 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. 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. Volume moves the price per piece, and it should. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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. The programme decides the delivery, not the workshop.

The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. A table top answers to none of that, since it meets no wall and needs no scribe, but the pieces come off the same slab as the counter and the colour has to carry across both. Veining is laid out so no two pieces read as a pair. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. A step in the floor is a base decision. Tell us how close a van can get to the door, and whether the tables have to be moved regularly, since that decides the thickness before anything else does. Managed stock usually comes with its own rules about working hours, waste, and who is allowed on site. 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. The invoice and the approval carry the same name.

Our own installers do the carry, so there is nobody in the middle to argue with about it. Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. Tops travel upright in a padded frame, and it is the frame rather than the person carrying it that has to clear the tightest turn. The turn is measured for the frame, not for a person.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The chimney breast in the kitchen served a back boiler behind the living room fire, so the flue is a shared one and the breast is deeper than a fireplace would need. The trade in this stock is a row of units under a block, usually a roller shutter with a shallow room behind it. Chair backs do more damage than plates ever do.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Windows sit in deep concrete reveals with a cast sill, and that reveal is usually the least square thing in the room. Table tops sit outside all of that, because a top touches no wall at all and every one of its edges is profiled, polished and on show. A dining room is a batch, and a batch is one slab run.

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. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. The bases go in first and are stood where they belong, so nothing heavy is dragged across a floor that has already been finished. Wrapping stays on until the pedestal is standing.