Reception counters and desks in Roehampton

Yes. Roehampton 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. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. A frontage with no stopping is a fitting slot, not a fitting day. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

The window cill clears a worktop by very little, which settles how tall the upstand under it can be before anyone has drawn a thing. Estates of this kind carry the buildings that serve them: a housing office, a health centre, a community hall, and every one has a counter the public queues at. The lobby was finished by somebody else, and the counter joins it. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. A bowed lobby wall is a scribe, and a scribe takes hours.

Where only one car serves the building a breakdown on the morning halts the job outright, so the fallback route is worked out at template rather than on the landing. 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. A goods lift diagonal belongs on the counter drawing. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Crew size follows the distance from the van to the lobby.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Agents book this work at short notice, because the void only becomes a real date once the outgoing tenant confirms they are going. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. One counter, one drawing, and no second bite at it. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. 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. Several desks off one slab run, or they will not match.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. 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.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. The counter is scribed to the carcass, and the carcass to the floor. Tell us the hours the building can be worked in and whether the lobby stays open, and send photographs of every corner so we can find the ducts before we draw. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. 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. Dilapidations decide more counter specifications than taste does.

A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. 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. The low shelf is drawn to the counter above it, not to the wall.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. A counter standing proud of the wall has nothing to hide behind.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. The hot water cylinder sits in a cupboard opening off the kitchen or the landing above it, and the pipework to it drops through the corner of the room. A housing office counter is used hard and cleaned harder, so the surface is specified for wear and the front edge for being leaned on all day. A parade unit is entered up a step nobody thought to measure.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. The first kitchen units were metal and screwed straight into the blockwork, and their plugs are still in the wall behind whatever plaster went over them. These are the buildings where the transaction shelf earns its keep, because the people served at it are the people the standard was written for. Where the hall is tall, the light finds every seam in the counter.