Reception counters and desks in Ladywell

Yes. Ladywell is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE13, SE4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. The van stays put while the carcass is being scribed to. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. The commercial work around housing of this age is shopfront: a narrow unit off a high-street parade, entered up a step, with the reception running back from the door into the depth of the plan. The building stays open, so the counter goes in after hours. 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. 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 the joiner left behind is what the templater records.

A handrail that has to come off before a piece will pass is twenty minutes at the start of the day, and it goes back on the wall before we leave. 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. Nothing is carried through a reception still taking visitors. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. A red route puts a clock on a counter that will not be rushed.

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 fabrication. 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. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. 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. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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 doorway partway along one wall breaks that side into two separate pieces, and two short pieces cost more between them than the single long one they replace. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. Two planes, one drawing, one setting-out point. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. A bowed lobby wall is a scribe, and a scribe takes hours. 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. 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. 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. Dilapidations decide more counter specifications than taste does.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Handles on opposing runs meet in the middle of the aisle, so a deep edge profile specified on both sides takes width out of the standing space twice over. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. The low shelf is drawn to the counter above it, not to the wall.

The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. Where the floor falls away across a lobby the carcass is packed level first, because the top cannot correct anything sitting under it. The counter is scribed to the carcass, and the carcass to the floor.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A groove set is its own item on the quote rather than something rolled in with the sink cut-out. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. 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. Reception work is quiet work, done to a building already open.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. These were built late enough to have a damp course and proper footings, so the front of the house is close to true and the rear addition holding the kitchen is the part that has dropped. 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 building around the lobby decides the counter more than the brief does.