Reception counters and desks in New Eltham

Yes. New Eltham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE9. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Trolleys cross block paving badly, so boards go down first. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

These were built with generous circulation, so an island or a peninsula fits in a room that would be too tight in a house of the same floor area. 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. The knee recess is argued over hardest where the floor is shallowest. 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 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 counter is scribed to the carcass, and the carcass to the floor.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. The way in is walked with the joiner as well as with a tape. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. One space, one visit, and the counter goes in whole.

Not especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop design & quotation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. A desk somebody sits at all day is specified for wear. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. 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. Card reader positions come from the operator, not the architect.

With three walls in play the chance of one of them being out of square is high, and the template has to carry all three angles. 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. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

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. 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 counter standing proud of the wall has nothing to hide behind. 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. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. 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. Access and out-of-hours permission sit with the building, not the tenant.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. The old larder leaves behind a thick cold shelf and a vent brick through the outer wall, and both have to go before that wall reads flat. 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. Front of house is read from standing height and from seated height both.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. Where the goods entrance is round the back, the carry is priced from there.

A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A sit-on sink and an undermounted one are different cut-outs, so which it is gets settled before the template. The advantage of a U is that every join can be put over a gable in a corner, so nothing lands in the middle of a clear length. 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.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. The short run at the head of a U usually sits under a window, so that piece is scribed on three sides at once and has nowhere left to be pushed back to. Where the front is curved the top is cut on a waterjet, and the carcass has to be built to the same radius rather than close to it. The low shelf is drawn to the counter above it, not to the wall.