Reception counters and desks in Gants Hill

Yes. Gants Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are IG2. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Redbridge. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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 bay is booked by the hour, pieces come off in fitting order. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The larder had a slate or terrazzo shelf on its cold wall, heavy enough that it usually got left in place when everything else went. 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. Housing office counters get cleaned harder than they get used. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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. A shadow gap solves what a scribe cannot.

A height barrier on the car park entrance rules out a tail-lift van outright, and the stone then transfers to a trolley at the barrier itself. 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. Piece length is capped in the drawing office, not on the landing. 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 transaction shelf can wait on the van; the counter cannot.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop installation and worktop templating. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. A counter in a working building is an evening job. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. 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. One visit, because a lobby cannot be closed twice.

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. Where the front curves, the shelf below it curves with it. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. The knee recess is checked for square before the shelf is cut. 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. An owner living in the house makes the decisions and lives with them, so the specification tends to go towards the material rather than towards the lowest total. 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. The operator uses the counter; the owner pays for it.

An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. Two levels means two datums, and they are reconciled on paper.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Concierge buildings want the goods entrance, a booked lift and proof of insurance, all of which is straightforward when it is asked for a week out. 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 goods lift diagonal belongs on the counter drawing.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. 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. A fit-out programme puts the counter last, behind the joiner and the electrician, which is exactly when the least time is left to template it. One counter, one drawing, and no second bite at it.

A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. 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 return between the two levels is drawn first and cut first.