Splashbacks and upstands in Bayswater

Yes. Bayswater is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W2. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. 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. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Kitchens in these flats are frequently in what was a bedroom or a return room, so the window is tall and its sill sits close to worktop height. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. 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. It is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. A breast return is scribed on three edges.

Spindles and a newel cap stand proud of the string, so the usable width on a turn is measured to the handrail rather than to the wall behind it. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. Joint positions follow from that. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A managed portfolio tends to repeat one specification across every flat, which keeps later repairs and replacements simple to order. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room.

The free end is what needs deciding early: square edge, mitred apron down the end, or a full waterfall to the floor, and a waterfall is cut in sequence off the same part of the slab. The same shape decides where splashback pieces break, and a joint in a corner reads as a detail while one in a clear run reads as a mistake. Panel height is set by the extractor. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Nobody reseals a worktop annually in a let property, so a material that depends on being resealed is the wrong specification however well it photographs. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. An upstand rides what a panel exposes.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. A conversion takes kitchen waste to a stack added to the outside of the building, which fixes the sink position long before anyone draws a layout. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Peninsulas frequently land on a lightweight partition or on units that were never fixed down, and stone needs proper support under it before it goes on. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one.

An upstand is a slim strip that follows the worktop up the wall; a full-height splashback runs from the worktop to the underside of the wall units. The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Floors are the original joists with a later acoustic layer laid over them, and that layer is not flat where it meets the doorways. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. Decided before fabrication starts.