Splashbacks and upstands in Colindale

Yes. Colindale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW9. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. One trip is always better than three. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Kitchens are compact and standardised, which makes the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines a larger share of the total than the stone. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. A chimney breast breaks the run and the panels follow it. A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off.

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. 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. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Grout lines are the first thing to fail in a let. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

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. 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. A galley shows both walls at the same time. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Window boards and cills stand proud of the plaster, so the back edge of the top has to be plotted to where the units actually sit rather than to the wall. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. 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. Whoever specifies it signs the drawing.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The original units were screwed to timber grounds set into the wall, and where those were torn out the plaster was patched rather than replaced. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel thickness changes what the sockets need behind them.

On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.