Splashbacks and upstands in Bow Common

Yes. Bow Common is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E3, E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Access is a question about the plot rather than the house: a narrow frontage between older buildings with nowhere obvious to stand a van. The plasterboard is genuinely flat here, so a full-height splashback sits well and a slim upstand looks almost redundant, but the sockets are the problem, because they are set out to the developer's original kitchen and often land at odd heights or right on a joint line. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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. The sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Estate roads are often too tight for a long-wheelbase van to turn, so the carry starts a good deal further from the door than a map suggests. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

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 specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. Replacing one plot years after handover is the problem nobody plans for, because a quartz colour can be reordered and a granite block cannot. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

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

A live soil stack cannot be chased back into the wall, so the depth it steals is permanent and the run is planned around it rather than through it. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Whoever specifies it signs the drawing.

Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Sealing is the one maintenance job that genuinely differs by material, and it is worth knowing which you are buying before the slab is chosen. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Block and beam floors with blockwork walls are true enough that the scribes are light and the joins can be pulled tight. Every socket, switch and any USB point has to be cut out of the stone to the actual measured position, so the template has to be taken with the faceplates off and the back boxes visible. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes.

The quote is itemised, so a job where you already hold the slab is the same job with the material line taken off it. Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. New-build kitchens are usually smaller than the plan suggests once the appliances are in, so the usable run is shorter than the drawn run. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run.

Stone does not flex, so a run that rocks on its carcasses rocks just as badly once it is stone. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. Infill plots usually put the kitchen at the back with wide doors to a small garden, and that opening is the best route in. A full-height panel is bonded across its back and carried on the upstand line rather than left hanging on adhesive alone. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it.