Reception counters and desks in Southborough

Yes. Southborough is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT6. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. A commercial frontage rarely has anywhere to stop, so the unload is timed rather than assumed and the counter pieces come off first. One space, one visit, and the counter goes in whole. Template and fit both happen at the property, so there is nothing to drive to and nothing to collect.

Original joinery is deep and stands proud of the plaster, so the run is plotted to the units rather than to the wall behind them. Large houses in these streets are converted into clinics, nurseries and small offices, and the reception ends up in a hall that was never meant to hold a desk. A shopfront door caps the counter length before the slab does. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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.

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. 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. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Loading bays belonging to the building are booked by whoever holds the lease, and that is seldom whoever ordered the counter. Where the goods entrance is round the back, the carry is priced from there.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop design & quotation, worktop templating and worktop installation. 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. Nothing is cut until the joinery has been signed off. 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. A phased fit-out gets phased templating, one lobby at a time.

A pop-up socket in the surface is one more cut-out through the full thickness, and it wants the same clear space beneath it that a sink does. A counter has the same argument in miniature: a straight run nests kindly on a slab, and every return costs yield. Setting out starts at the entrance end and works inward. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Floors settle, and once base units are packed and levelled properly the stone sits true while everything else in the room admits it is not. 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. 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. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. Where a managing agent has to approve the work, the drawing goes out in a form they can sign without ever standing in the lobby. Dilapidations decide more counter specifications than taste does.

Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. 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. A counter reads as one plane or as several, and that is a drawing decision.

Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. 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. Lift doors close on a timer that takes no account of somebody holding a worktop, so a pair of hands stays on the buttons at each end. 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.

Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Nothing is payable in advance of the template. A utility or boot room usually takes a second run of stone, templated with the kitchen and fitted after it. 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 lower shelf is there to be used, not to break up an elevation.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. 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. Where the counter turns, the pattern turns with it.