Reception counters and desks in Silvertown

Yes. Silvertown 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 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. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Trolleys cross block paving badly, so boards go down first. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. A neighbourhood of new blocks means concierge desks: a managed lobby with a counter working as a post point and a security position at the same time. A converted front room gives a lobby with no depth to it. 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. 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 shelf over a knee recess cannot be packed, so it is cut true.

A rated load sounds ample until three lengths of granite and two fitters are standing on it, so the stone goes up one piece at a time. 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. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. One space, one visit, and the counter goes in whole.

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 templating and worktop replacement. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. On a fit-out counter the date is half the decision. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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. Nothing is cut until the joinery has been signed off.

Whether it comes off the same slab as the run behind it or needs one of its own is settled by laying both against the usable area of the slab, not by adding the metres up. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. The front edge is the one everybody touches, so it is drawn first. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. 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 back return follows the wall as the wall leans. 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. The operator uses the counter; the owner pays for it.

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. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. An unsupported overhang off a stud wall wants noggins fixed between the studs before the boarding goes on, and once it is boarded and skimmed that option has gone. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. Column casings take machined returns, not filler.

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. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. The room is square, the walls are plumb and the floor is flat, so almost every complication in the job belongs to the building rather than the kitchen. 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. The transaction shelf carries the detail the upper counter hides.

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. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. Setting out starts at the entrance end and works inward.

The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Blankets on the walls and a board on the floor go in before the first piece, because a scratched car becomes a bill from the managing agent long after the kitchen is finished. A lobby is one of the few places a piece can be staged, so the counter comes in early and stands on trestles until the carcass is ready for it. The counter is the last thing in and the first thing looked at.