Splashbacks and upstands in Friern Barnet

Yes. Friern Barnet is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N11. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Barnet. A shared-use bay allows a paid stay up to a set maximum, and that maximum is routinely shorter than the working day the job needs. 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.

Rear rooms of this date have a wide sash or a pair of garden doors, so a good deal of the wall the run wants is glass. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. Where a run finishes into a reveal, the depth of that reveal is taken at worktop height and nowhere else. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

A height barrier on the car park entrance rules out a tail-lift van outright, and the stone then transfers to a trolley at the barrier itself. 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. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down. Camera enforcement gives nobody the chance to explain, where an officer on foot at least sees a tail lift down and stone coming off it. 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.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. 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.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. A second visit needs a second permission.

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 bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Height is taken at the shortest point of the run.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panels come off the same slab area as the run.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The side return was an outside toilet and a coal store before it was ever a kitchen, and the walls left over from that are half a brick thick. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. A chimney breast breaks a panel run regardless of the drawing.

A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Window reveals take a piece of their own.