Reception counters and desks in Canary Wharf

Yes. Canary Wharf is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Crew size follows the distance from the van to the lobby. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

A tower block runs one or two lifts for many floors, so a lift out of service postpones a job rather than making it harder. These are the counters where the lower transaction shelf earns its keep, because the people served at it are the people the standard was written for, so the knee space and the clear approach to it are checked on site rather than taken off a drawing. The building stays open, so the counter goes in after hours. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. 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 template is taken to the carcass as built.

Handrails, mirrors and a sloping ceiling panel all eat into the usable diagonal, and none of them appear on a lift specification sheet. 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. Every re-grip near a finished front edge is planned out beforehand. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Trolleys cross block paving badly, so boards go down first.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop design & quotation and worktop fabrication. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. A spare offcut kept back can save a whole counter later. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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. Repeat receptions are worth settling once and then leaving alone.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. The counter shape follows the queue first and the slab second. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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. Twist in a carcass shows first at the transaction shelf. Tell us the hours the building can be worked in and whether the lobby stays open, and send photographs of every corner so we can find the ducts before we draw. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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 operator uses the counter; the owner pays for it.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. A long counter magnifies every millimetre the carcass is out.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. A back-of-counter return is a separate piece with its own edges.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. A lift out of service for the day turns a straightforward install into a stair carry, so the slot gets confirmed with whoever manages the building rather than against a calendar. 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. The counter is sized to the way in before it is sized to the slab.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. 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. Every change of plane is a join waiting to be placed well.