Reception counters and desks in Ruislip Manor

Yes. Ruislip Manor is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hillingdon. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Waiting time on a counter job is the most expensive hour of it. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

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, and every one has a counter the public queues at: a housing office, a health centre, a community hall, a library. Where the hall is tall, the light finds every seam in the counter. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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 is out of true gets measured, not talked around.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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 polished front edge travels facing inward, always. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. The counter comes off the van first and goes in last.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. 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. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. 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. 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. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. The low shelf is drawn to the counter above it, not to the wall. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. A lobby floor that falls is packed out under the joinery. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. 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.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. Dense concrete and blockwork mean the wall cannot be chased back or packed out, so the stone carries the scribe. Two working surfaces at two heights, a return between them and clear knee space under the lower one: that is the shape almost every counter ends up being, whatever the front elevation promised. Apertures for cable and card reader are machined, never drilled in a lobby.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. A reception fit is often booked outside opening hours precisely because that is when the kerb in front of the building is free. A booked bay costs less than an hour of a crew standing still.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. The counter is the last thing in and the first thing looked at.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. 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. Nothing on a counter is corrected with sealant.