Splashbacks and upstands in Coulsdon

Yes. Coulsdon is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are CR5. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Croydon. A free-parking street with cars both sides can still leave the van forty metres away, and that distance is carry, not driving. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A radiator sits under the rear window on the outside wall, and moving it is plumbing that belongs before the template rather than after it. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. What the wall can take decides how tall the stone goes. Where a peninsula returns into a stud wall the load has to sit on the units, with the wall doing no more than steadying it. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Every internal doorway on the way through is another frame to clear, and internal doors come off their hinges rather than being propped open. 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. Break positions are chosen for the carry. Where the van can pull up level with the gate the pieces are handled the fewest times, which is what actually protects them. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. One trip is always better than three.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. 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. 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. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Residents are given written notice before anyone attends, and that notice period rather than the workshop is what governs the earliest sensible start. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Upstand height taken from the specification.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. That is why they are crated the way they are.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. 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. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A tall panel cannot be tilted to clear a turn, so it is sized not to need to.

The template is taken in your kitchen after the units are in and fixed, never before. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The kitchen door opens inwards into the middle of a run, so the usable length of that wall stops well short of the corner. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Height off the units, not off the old tiles.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show.