Splashbacks and upstands in Forest Hill

Yes. Forest Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE23. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. Unrestricted does not mean empty, and a street that is clear at seven is usually full by nine. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A deep butler sink and a boiling tap on the same length put two heavy cut-outs within a metre of each other. These runs are long and often include a range recess, so the splashback is nearly always more than one piece and the joint placement matters, put it in a corner or over a hob centre line, not randomly in the middle of a clear run. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. A chimney breast left in place splits a wall into two alcoves, and the two are rarely the same width and rarely parallel to each 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 reveal decides where the stone dies.

A hall that widens further in is still only as good as its tightest point, and that point is usually within a metre of the front door. 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. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

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 fabrication. 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. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Wipe-down beats sealed grout on a turnaround.

It is the heaviest single piece in the kitchen, so the number of hands needed on the day and the route in are worked out from that piece rather than from the runs. 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. Panel height is set by the extractor. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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 range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. 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. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Committed early or dropped early, not left open.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. On a replacement the old top comes off in the morning and the new stone is down and sealed the same day. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

Every piece is dry-assembled on the bench before it is loaded, so a fabrication mistake is found in the workshop rather than in your kitchen. Door frames and the stair route are protected too, since most contact happens on the way in. The rest of the kitchen still goes in. One damaged piece does not hold up the pieces either side. A front path with a gate and a turn or two adds handling before the door is even reached, and every handling movement is another chance to catch a corner. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. 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. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. Whether it comes off the same slab as the run behind it or needs one of its own is settled by laying both against the usable area of the slab, not by adding the metres up. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one.