Reception counters and desks in Hendon

Yes. Hendon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW4. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. A height barrier rules out the tail lift before it rules out anything else. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. A block of this age carries a porter's desk in the entrance hall, and that hall is usually a protected interior with panelling, an original floor and finishes nobody is allowed to fix into. A parade unit is entered up a step nobody thought to measure. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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 packer belongs under the joinery, never under the counter.

A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. 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. Revolving doors get measured rather than assumed. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. Service yards want a name and a time, given a week out.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on 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. The counter is the last trade in and the first thing judged. 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. Apertures change from desk to desk, so each drawing is its own.

A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. The knee recess removes the leg the span was relying on. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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. What the joiner left behind is what the templater records. Measure the lift car internally, photograph the stair turn and the hall, and confirm with the managing agent what may and may not be fixed into. 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. A porter's desk is specified to outlast the porter.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A drive that shelves towards the house needs the van chocked and the trolley controlled, since a loaded A-frame gathers speed quickly on a slope. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. The counter is unwrapped inside the building, never at the kerb.

Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The flats are stacked identically, so the kitchen above sits directly over this one and its waste passes through the same boxing. That makes the counter a freestanding thing on its own carcass, drawn to clear the skirting rather than to sit against it, with the fixings agreed before the drawing is finished. Where the hall is tall, the light finds every seam in the counter.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. 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. Two planes, one drawing, one setting-out point.

Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. Blocks of this age carry a porter's desk in the entrance hall, and that hall is usually a protected interior where nothing may be fixed into the original finishes. Housing office counters get cleaned harder than they get used.