Reception counters and desks in Haggerston

Yes. Haggerston is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E2, E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. 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. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Packaging leaves with us rather than filling the lobby. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Cornice runs round the head of the wall, so the wall units stop under it and the splashback band is trapped between two things that are not going to move. That entrance is what caps the counter, because a shopfront door and the step in front of it will take far less than a full-length top, so the run is broken over a support in the carcass rather than gambled on. The service road at the back is often the real way in. 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. 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.

Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. Trestles go up in the lobby before anything is unwrapped. 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. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. A bay suspension is a line on the quote, not a surprise.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting 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. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. One visit, because a lobby cannot be closed twice. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. 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 counter, one drawing, and no second bite at it.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. The return between the two levels is drawn first and cut first. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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 lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. Where the plaster bows, the counter is drawn away from it. Send photographs taken walking from the pavement through the door to where the counter will stand, along with the carcass dimensions once the joiner has fixed it. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. 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.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The kitchen normally sits in the back addition or a later side return, which puts the run against the oldest and least straight wall in the building. 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. A counter is measured in the lobby it will stand in.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. The units are untouched. Only the top of them changes. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. Two heights, one unload, one trip across the pavement.

Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. Where the floor falls away across a lobby the carcass is packed level first, because the top cannot correct anything sitting under it. A shadow gap solves what a scribe cannot.

Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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. Several desks off one slab run, or they will not match.