Splashbacks and upstands in Brompton

Yes. Brompton is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW3. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. 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.

The stair from the street is narrow with a tight turn at the top, which caps piece length well below anything the run itself needs. 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. Scribing is the skill here - decades of boxed-in services mean almost nothing behind a base unit is actually straight or plumb.

The main road is a red route with no stopping in the day, so unloading happens on the mews and side streets and the carry-in is on foot through gardens or a shared side passage. Flats above shops are reached by a single narrow street door and a straight steep stair with a hard 90 at the top, which is the piece-length limiter. Communal stairs get boarded and the handrail padded, and we walk the route with a tape before the first piece leaves the van. 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 templating. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template.

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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. 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. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall has to be ready.