Splashbacks and upstands in Brockley

Yes. Brockley is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The larder under the stairs is usually still there and still opens into the kitchen, so the run stops at a door that cannot be moved. 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. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre. A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. 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 panel takes its height off the steel.

A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. The crate stays on the van until the route in is clear.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop replacement. 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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. 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. Height is agreed before the cut list closes. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. 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. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut. 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. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A deferred splashback still comes off this drawing.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Twenty millimetres of packing behind a panel is not a fix.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident.

A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. The original front door is narrow and the hall is often the only way in, which puts a ceiling on the longest single piece. Socket positions, sill heights and wall flatness are the three things that settle this, and all three are properties of the building. The batch is held while the tops are cut, or the colour drifts.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Stone cannot be filled and made good the way laminate can, so a damaged piece is remade rather than patched. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. The lift is only part of the route, and the corridor from the lobby to the flat door often holds a tighter turn than the car does. 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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height.