Reception counters and desks in Soho

Yes. Soho is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W1D, W1F. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Two heights, one unload, one trip across the pavement. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. The commercial work around housing of this age is shopfront: a narrow deep unit off a parade, with the reception running back from the door into the depth of the plan. Nurseries want a hatch, and the hatch is on the same drawing. Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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. Column casings take machined returns, not filler.

Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. 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 a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. The van stays put while the carcass is being scribed to.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. Fit-out programmes slip toward the counter, never away from it. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. 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. The joiner has to finish before we are able to start.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. Where the counter turns, the pattern turns with it. Reckon on £110 to £550 per square metre for the material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting itemised separately.

Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. What is out of true gets measured, not talked around. Send photographs taken walking from the pavement through the door to where the counter will stand, along with the carcass dimensions once the joiner has fixed it. 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. The operator uses the counter; the owner pays for it.

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 the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. The return between the high counter and the low shelf never nests neatly, and it is what decides how much slab the desk swallows. Support positions go on the drawing before the top is nested.

A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Listing and conservation conditions apply to a good number of these, which constrains what can be altered around the kitchen rather than what goes on top of the units. A front room converted into a surgery or a salon gives a small lobby and a counter that still has to leave width for people to get past it. The building stays open, so the counter goes in after hours.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Walls at both ends mean two scribes on every piece, and a run that has to drop between two fixed points has no tolerance left to give away. Where the front is curved the top is cut on a waterjet, and the carcass has to be built to the same radius rather than close to it. A shallow shelf still needs a support run of its own.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. A piece carried on edge up a flight has to clear the ceiling above the stairs as well as the walls either side of it. 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. Working out of hours costs less than a chipped counter does.