Splashbacks and upstands in Bell Green

Yes. Bell Green is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE26, SE6. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. On a drive that only takes one vehicle nose-in, the van has to reverse the whole length of it to get back out, which decides which way it goes in. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate stays on the van until the route in is clear. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A side alley and a back door mean most pieces go in whole, and it is the alley width rather than the front door that decides it. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. It is usually the full-height panels rather than the tops that will not make the turn, and that only shows up when they arrive. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The offcuts finish the room. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it.

Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. 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. Window reveals take a piece of their own. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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 old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where someone is living in the house through the work, the strip-out and the fit are planned so the kitchen is out of use for a day and not a week. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. The return piece is the awkward one on a slab: short, full depth, and rarely nesting neatly against the long lengths, so yield rather than area is what moves the material figure. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. A long carry turns a light piece into an awkward one.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. The kitchen door opens inwards into the middle of a run, so the usable length of that wall stops well short of the corner. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Siliconed to the top, never grouted.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. A level threshold with hard standing outside it is the one arrangement where a full run goes in without a single re-grip. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A panel that would need turning indoors is turned outside instead.