Splashbacks and upstands in Cranford

Yes. Cranford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW5, TW4. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. Where a car has to come off the drive first, it is worth knowing whose car it is and whether the keys are in the house on the morning. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

A serving hatch through to the dining room was standard, and where it has been blocked up the patch sits on a different plane to the wall either side of 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. Old walls lean back, and a tall panel shows it. A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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. The sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. Joint positions follow from that. A gate post set narrower than the opening looks generous from the road and stops a wide piece a metre in. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. 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. 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. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Six kitchens, one socket layout, one panel drawing.

Where a run finishes hard against a wall the last few millimetres are scribed, and where it finishes in open floor it is cut square and polished, which is two different jobs on one length. 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. Long walls break where the worktop breaks. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

A cill projecting forward of the plaster line pushes the back edge out, and the units then stand off the wall by that amount for the whole length. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall trade answers to a different budget.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The rear extension is usually the newest and truest part of the building, so it is the older half of the kitchen that gives the trouble. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A bowed wall gets measured at three heights first.

What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. The design and quotation visit is free and carries no obligation, so a figure exists before any commitment. Where the sill lands inside the height an upstand would occupy there is no upstand, and the stone either dies into the reveal or stops short of it. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. Both are templated after the worktop is down and settled, because they are cut to the wall itself. The larder had a cold shelf and an air brick straight through to the outside, and that brick is usually still open behind whatever now stands in front of it. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick.