Splashbacks and upstands in Bromley Town Centre

Yes. Bromley Town Centre is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR1, BR2. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Estate roads inside a controlled zone are sometimes managed privately rather than by the council, which changes who has to be asked. 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.

A long piece has to come through the front door, down the hall, round the newel post and through a doorway with a step down into the addition. 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. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes.

The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. 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.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. 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. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback.

The two runs are rarely the same length, and the shorter one often carries the sink, which puts the cut-outs in the piece with the least material to spare. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panel height is set by the extractor. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. 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. Because the money comes out of a household rather than a maintenance budget, phasing is common: tops now, island or splashbacks later, quoted so the second visit still matches the first. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. 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.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A tall bank of housings at one end takes a chunk out of the working run, so the usable length of that side is always less than the length of the wall behind it. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one.

The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. We seat and seal the sink and hob on the day; water, waste, gas and electrics are for your plumber and electrician. A full-depth tall unit projects past the worktop line, and the run has to be scribed against its side panel instead of carrying on past it. The panel behind a hob is usually the tallest piece in the kitchen, and its height is set by the extractor above it rather than by the wall cupboards either side. Long walls break where the worktop breaks.

A remake goes back through the same cutting and polishing, so it is a return visit rather than a patch. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not.