Reception counters and desks in Parsons Green

Yes. Parsons Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. 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. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. The tail lift needs pavement, not simply a space. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. 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. Nurseries want a hatch, and the hatch is on the same drawing. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. 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. Nothing on a counter is corrected with sealant.

A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Outside opening hours is usually when the kerb is free.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. 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. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. 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. The joiner has to finish before we are able to start. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. 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. Reception work is booked around the building staying open.

Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. Where the counter turns, the pattern turns with it. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. The template is taken to the carcass as built. 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. 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. 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. The counter stays when the tenant goes, and is chosen accordingly.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. 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. Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. Support positions go on the drawing before the top is nested.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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. A counter piece walked in on edge needs the headroom checked too.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. Whoever holds the lease usually holds the loading bay.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The rear wall of the addition carries both the back door and the window, which leaves very little unbroken wall for a run to sit against. 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. Every counter starts with the joiner finishing.