Splashbacks and upstands in Dollis Hill

Yes. Dollis Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW2, NW10. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. Drives with a dropped kerb and a tight turn-in take a long van at an angle, and that angle decides which side the tail lift can work from. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

The pantry was a half-brick enclosure in the corner of the room, and where it has been taken out the wall behind it is made good brickwork rather than original plaster. 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. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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 obstruction sets the joint, not the wall.

The side passage is the measurement that matters, because a piece has to be carried flat down it and then turned in at the back door, and the turn is always tighter than the passage. 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. A panel that would need turning indoors is turned outside instead. Where the drive is too short for the van the back end overhangs the footway, and a footway is a route people are using rather than spare space. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does.

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 and worktop replacement. 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. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The annexe gets the same panel as the main run.

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. Return ends are polished, not left sawn. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. The decision usually gets made standing in the room rather than at a desk, which is why a slab is worth viewing whole instead of choosing from a sample card. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Low maintenance is the honest choice for a let.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. 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. The window over the sink sits at about worktop height, so the run is set out around the sill and the reveal rather than under them. 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.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Having the van on the drive means the load can be staged, so the heavy pieces come off last and go straight in instead of standing outside. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join is glued and clamped flush on the day, so it is fixed rather than something to be undone. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall.