Splashbacks and upstands in Canonbury

Yes. Canonbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N1. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These were built with a scullery that has since been swallowed by an extension, leaving a change of floor level roughly where the run crosses. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. Solid plaster on brick takes a panel; a hollow wall wants thought. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail.

A front path with a gate and a turn or two adds handling before the door is even reached, and every handling movement is another chance to catch a corner. 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 travels on edge, so the clearance is checked on edge. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A long carry turns a light piece into an awkward one.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. 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. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. 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. 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. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two trades, two budgets, one drawing.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. The quote is written from the template drawing. Before that it works from what you have described. 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. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. The rear room has a bay or a wide window onto the garden, so the sink length is short and the real working length is on the return. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it.

A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Suspended timber floors flex underfoot, and anything that moves beneath a unit shows up later as a lipped join. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The batch is held while the tops are cut, or the colour drifts.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A carpeted hall runs a trolley badly, so a heavy piece is carried rather than rolled from the threshold in. 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. Break positions are chosen for the carry.