Reception counters and desks in Shooters Hill

Yes. Shooters Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE18. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Greenwich. A visitor or a neighbour parked on the drive is a five-minute problem at eight in the morning and an hour-long one at eleven. 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. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Handmade brick and lime plaster move visibly along a run, and a straight-cut back edge shows it immediately. Large houses in these streets get converted into clinics, nurseries, small offices and members' rooms, and the reception ends up in a hall that was never meant to hold a desk. The building around the lobby decides the counter more than the brief does. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. The counter is scribed to the carcass, and the carcass to the floor.

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. 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. The counter is the last thing in and the first thing looked at. 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. The upper counter is the longest piece on the van, so the tail lift needs the full swing radius clear on the pavement. A booked bay costs less than an hour of a crew standing still.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop design & quotation 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. 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. 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. Repeat receptions are worth settling once and then leaving alone. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. On a fit-out counter the date is half the decision.

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. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. The front edge is the one everybody touches, so it is drawn first. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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 counter standing proud of the wall has nothing to hide behind. Confirm the edge profile and which faces receive it, and tell us whether a screen, hatch or gate forms part of the counter before the carcass is built. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. 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. Whoever holds the keys holds the fitting slot.

Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Remnants bought elsewhere are the awkward case, because the drawing is then made to fit the stone. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. 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. Nothing is cut until the joinery has been signed off.

Plumbing, gas and electrical work are not in the figure, because we do not do them. Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. Two kitchens the same length can be far apart, because material, edge and cut-outs move independently of size. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. 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. 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. 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. Setting out starts at the entrance end and works inward.

Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. These houses usually sit in their own grounds with a long approach, so the carry from van to door is longer than anything inside the building. What is wanted there is a counter reading as furniture rather than as a shop fitting, which puts the edge profile, the returns and the finish on the back of the counter under real scrutiny. A shopfront door caps the counter length before the slab does.