Splashbacks and upstands in Edgware

Yes. Edgware is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are HA8. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. 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. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

Houses of this period came with generous garages and utility rooms, so a second short run of stone is often part of the same job. 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. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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 reveal decides where the stone dies.

A side gate hung to open outward against a fence post is narrower in use than it measures, and lifting the gate off its hinges is usually the quickest win on the route. 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. What can be got into the room decides the height above the worktop. 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. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop fabrication. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. 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.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. 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. Upstands follow the return round the corner. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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 bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. An owner paying for this directly tends to want the reasoning as much as the number, so a quote that explains why a join sits where it does is worth more than a cheaper one that does not. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Fitted with the tops if it was decided with them.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Rear extensions on these sit on shallow foundations, and the crack at the junction with the original wall tells you which way it has moved. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Full height needs a flat wall and a finished electrician.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Where the garden is level and the back door is wide the pieces get staged outside on trestles and brought in one at a time as the fitters are ready for them. 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. They stand upright in the van and stay upright until they are on the wall.

Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Where a top takes wine, oil and lemon most days, the non-porous materials ask least of the household. Solid brick with a render coat is firm to work against and out of plumb, so the scribe at worktop height is different from the one at plinth level. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. Cut from the same slab run as the tops.

Grooves are machined in the workshop at the same time as the bowl cut-out, because they cannot be done well in a kitchen. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. 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. Socket positions, sill heights and wall flatness are the three things that settle this, and all three are properties of the building. An upstand asks less of old plaster than a panel does.