Splashbacks and upstands in Brick Lane

Yes. Brick Lane is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. 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. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A flat over a shop is reached by a separate street door and a straight steep stair, and that stair is the whole access question. Patched plaster next to original render sits at different depths, and that step is exactly what an upstand covers. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Above-shop flats mean everything gets planned in short jointed sections, and the stair, not the kitchen, sets the maximum piece size.

The street itself has heavy footfall from late morning until late at night, so realistically deliveries happen early and the van cannot sit for long. Flats above commercial units are reached by a separate side door and a very steep single-width stair, with no lift and no chance of turning a long piece at the top. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser plots the intermediate points. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops.