Splashbacks and upstands in Berrylands

Yes. Berrylands is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT5. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Kingston upon Thames. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. 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. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Solid walls with no cavity have often been dry-lined internally at some point, and the lining thickness varies from wall to wall. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Suction lifters need a clean dry face to hold, so in the wet the pads come off and the piece goes back to being carried on webbing by hand. 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. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop installation ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it.

An L can be mitred at the corner for a continuous look or butt-jointed over the gable, and the two are different money and different risk. 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. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. 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. The obstruction breaks the length, every time. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. 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.

No maintenance visit is built into the job. Soap, water, and on the porous stones a seal. The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Runs are short enough that a single slab covers the whole kitchen, which makes the material choice the main lever on the total. Where a full-height panel is wanted, the wall is made good first or the panel rocks on the high spots. What the plaster is stuck to matters more than its colour.

They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. Suspended floors at the front meet a solid slab in the extension somewhere in the middle, and the units sit across the change. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The flatter the wall, the taller the stone.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A galley shows both walls at the same time.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.