Splashbacks and upstands in Euston

Yes. Euston is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW1. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Walls are dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which will not be chased back and will not take a plasterboard fixing. That suits a full-height piece, because a large flat panel bonded across its back is more stable on concrete than a run of small tiles ever was. Decided before fabrication starts. Post-war blocks here have concrete walls, so you are drilling rather than screwing for splashback and upstand fixings and need the right kit on the first visit.

Bounded by the Euston Road red route with no stopping, and the side streets are Monday to Saturday CPZ with permanent construction traffic on top. Most drops involve a communal entry door, a lobby, then either a small lift or two flights of stairs. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall has to be ready.