Reception counters and desks in Putney

Yes. Putney is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW15. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Wandsworth. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Packaging leaves with us rather than filling the lobby. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Walls are solid brick with lime plaster and a hard skim over the top, and that skim comes away in sheets when old tiles are taken back. 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 stair off the pavement caps what can be turned onto the landing. A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through 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. What the joiner left behind is what the templater records.

A window sill or a radiator on the half-landing takes the corner out of the turn at precisely the point the piece needs that corner. 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. Pieces come in the order the carcass will accept them. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. A bay suspension is a line on the quote, not a surprise.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. 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 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. 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 quoted with the programme written beside it. 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. 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. Where the lobby stays open, the work runs outside opening hours.

Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. 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. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. Where a managing agent has to approve the work, the drawing goes out in a form they can sign without ever standing in the lobby. The building manager sets the hours the counter goes in.

A join forced by the route still sits over a gable, so it is no poorer a join for that. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Carrying down a flight is not the easier direction, because the weight runs ahead of the crew and whoever is at the bottom has no way of stopping a slip. 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 polished front edge travels facing inward, always.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A short run of external steps before the communal door means a piece is lifted twice before the staircase proper has even started. A finished lobby is almost always still in use, so the floor is covered and the route boarded before a single piece leaves the van. The counter is the last thing in and the first thing looked at.

Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. 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. 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. Steel and brick leave a desk nothing to lean against.

The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. How much slab you hold matters: upstands and any remake have to come out of the same batch. 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. The apertures for cable and card readers are what changes between one desk and the next, and every change is a fresh drawing rather than a variation. A spare offcut kept back can save a whole counter later.