Reception counters and desks in South Hampstead

Yes. South Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6, NW3. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. Where the goods entrance is round the back, the carry is priced from there. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Original walls are thick, lime-plastered and rarely straight, which makes dry-laying and scribing the bulk of the fitting day. 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 lobby was finished by somebody else, and the counter joins it. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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 lobby floor that falls is packed out under the joinery.

A steep pitch shortens the tread and lengthens the reach, which leaves whoever is below carrying most of the weight for the full flight. 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. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. An early slot buys an empty street and an empty lobby at once.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop templating and worktop installation. 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. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Counters are nearly always one-offs, so the saving that comes from repeating a specification is not usually on the table here. The joiner has to finish before we are able to start. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. 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. Reception work is booked around the building staying open.

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. 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. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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. Nothing on a counter is corrected with sealant. 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. Owner-occupied kitchens are usually being done once, which is why the edge profile, the vein direction and where a join falls are worth the conversation. 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. Dilapidations decide more counter specifications than taste does.

The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. A lobby wall that leans shows itself along the back return, so that edge is cut to the line the wall actually takes. The template is taken to the carcass as built.

Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because the openings are machined rather than chopped out on the wall. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. A range sitting in a chimney recess is common, and the flanking pieces are cut with the manufacturer clearance built into the template. 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 parade unit is entered up a step nobody thought to measure.

Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each other. The knee recess makes any twist in the carcass visible, since a shelf with nothing beneath it has nowhere for a packer to go. Twist in a carcass shows first at the transaction shelf.

The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. A dropped pan years later is a different question, and stone is remade rather than filled either way. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. Where the stairwell is narrow enough that the stone travels on edge the polished face runs within an inch of the plaster, so the walls get boarded as well as the steps. 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. Working out of hours costs less than a chipped counter does.