Restaurant and cafe table tops in North Sheen

Yes. North Sheen is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW9. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. Loading concessions differ from one zone to the next rather than following a single national rule, so what applied on the last job proves nothing about this one. A table order comes off the van as a stack of frames and a pallet of bases, and both of those need somewhere to stand before either is moved. Nothing is left on a pavement while a space is found. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. Parades of this period usually keep a service road or a yard behind them, so a full order can arrive at the back and the dining room stays laid up while it does. A rear yard is worth an hour of the day. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. None of that is scribed against on a table, since it stands clear of every wall, so the awkwardness moves from the back edge to the floor and the base. A rocking table is a floor problem and not a stone one.

A hall that widens further in is still only as good as its tightest point, and that point is usually within a metre of the front door. Tops travel upright in a padded frame, and it is the frame rather than the person carrying it that has to clear the tightest turn. A lift takes a loaded frame or it takes nothing. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. Delivery is booked to the room, not to a half day.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, 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. 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. Table work arrives as a batch by its nature, and a batch means one slab run rather than the same colour ordered twice a year apart. Volume moves the price per piece, and it should. 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 changes hands the bases usually stay, so a refit becomes a resurface and the saving comes from what is already bolted down. The programme decides the delivery, not the workshop.

The step or level change between the original room and the return is real, and the units need packing before stone goes across it. A table top answers to none of that, since it meets no wall and needs no scribe, but the pieces come off the same slab as the counter and the colour has to carry across both. A set is laid out together before anything is wrapped. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. A column, a boxed duct or a fixed bench in a dining room is designed around with a shape cut to suit rather than notched on site. The gangway is a measurement rather than an impression. Confirm how many covers go outside, and tell us whether the outdoor bases share the pattern of the indoor ones, since they often do not. 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. A table top bolted to a base you already own is loose furniture rather than a fixture, so it leaves with the operator at the end of a term. Nothing is ordered against a verbal instruction.

The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. 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. 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. Where a floor falls away, the levelling is done by winding out the feet under each base rather than by packing anything under the stone. Fixed seating fixes the dimension it faces.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Rooflights along a side return mean the worktop is lit from directly above all day, which shows every ripple in a surface and every gap at a scribe. What decides the cut list here is the seating plan rather than the room shape, and one repeated table size nests far better than six one-offs. Two-seaters and four-seaters come off one slab run.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. The units are wider than an older shopfront, which is what makes a long wall of two-seaters work, and a repeated size is the single cheapest decision on the order because it nests tightly and makes a spare piece worth holding. A high ceiling wants a thicker edge under it.

What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Where the standing is short the pieces are counted off at the tail lift against the plan rather than checked once they are already inside. Empty frames go back on the van the same trip.