Reception counters and desks in Royal Victoria

Yes. Royal Victoria is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E16. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. The transaction shelf can wait on the van; the counter cannot. We come to the kitchen to template and again to fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The kitchen usually sits along the internal spine of the plan with the glazing at the far end, so the run itself has no window and no daylight on it. The lobby was finished by the developer, so the counter is scribed to stone, terrazzo or a boarded wall somebody else laid, and that face is measured rather than assumed square. A porter's desk stands on its own carcass, fixed into nothing original. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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 counter standing proud of the wall has nothing to hide behind.

The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. Pieces come in the order the carcass will accept them. An event-day suspension can override a bay that is perfectly usable the rest of the week, so a booked space gets checked again nearer the time. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Nothing is stood anywhere on a pavement it could be knocked from.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop replacement and worktop design & quotation. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. 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 spare offcut kept back can save a whole counter later. 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. 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. Repeat receptions are worth settling once and then leaving alone.

The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. A counter reads as one plane or as several, and that is a drawing decision. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. The carcass is levelled before the top is ever offered up. Send the lift car internal dimensions and the loading bay rules with the carcass dimensions, and have the operator mark where the payment terminal and cable grommets really go. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. 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. What is left behind at lease end is a specification question.

A long top on units that were shimmed once and never checked is the commonest version of this, and it is cheap to fix beforehand. Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. Where the floor falls away across a lobby the carcass is packed level first, because the top cannot correct anything sitting under it. A shelf over a knee recess cannot be packed, so it is cut true.

The grooves sit inside the depth of the top with stone left either side, so a shallow run limits them. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Underfloor heating in a screed rules out fixing into the floor and rules out standing anything heavy on a single point. 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. Where the join lands is a sightline question before it is a slab question.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. 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. 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. On a fit-out counter the date is half the decision.

A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. 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. Where the counter turns, the pattern turns with it.