Reception counters and desks in Coney Hall

Yes. Coney Hall is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. A bay suspension is a line on the quote, not a surprise. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

The floor is a concrete slab screeded before the units existed, so it falls slightly and consistently towards the back door. Estates of this kind carry the buildings that serve them, and every one has a counter the public queues at: a housing office, a health centre, a community hall, a library. Nurseries want a hatch, and the hatch is on the same drawing. 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 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. What is out of true gets measured, not talked around.

The tail lift is still the pinch point, because the piece has to be walked off it onto the trolley while it is sitting at chest height. 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. A knee recess is an opening, and an opening weakens a piece in transit. A dropped kerb wide enough for a car is not always wide enough for a long-wheelbase van, and the width of the crossing decides the rest. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Two heights, one unload, one trip across the pavement.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. Matching across sites means matching blocks, not matching names. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. 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. The counter is quoted with the programme written beside it.

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 counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. Where the front curves, the shelf below it curves with it. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

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. 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. A lobby floor that falls is packed out under the joinery. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. Where a managing agent has to approve the work, the drawing goes out in a form they can sign without ever standing in the lobby. Where the freeholder keeps the lobby, the finishes are protected first.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. The van stays put while the carcass is being scribed to.

What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. 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. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. Nothing on a counter is corrected with sealant.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. No money changes hands before the template. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The kitchen doorway is usually offset into a corner, so one leg of an L is short before anyone has designed anything. A reception counter answers to the building it stands in more than to the drawing, because it is fabricated to a carcass somebody else has already built and fixed. What the public leans on is the part specified hardest.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. Every re-grip near a finished front edge is planned out beforehand.