Splashbacks and upstands in Golborne

Yes. Golborne is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W10. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A short bay slot is when the tall pieces get damaged. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Wider halls make the carry noticeably easier, and that alone can remove a join that a narrower terrace would have forced into the run. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one.

The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. 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. The ceiling over a staircase limits a standing panel as much as the walls. An event-day suspension can override a bay that is perfectly usable the rest of the week, so a booked space gets checked again nearer the time. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Kerb to kitchen is measured before the panels are unstrapped.

It sits second or third on this patch, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same benches, same installers either way. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. 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. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Rooflights along a side return mean the worktop is lit from directly above all day, which shows every ripple in a surface and every gap at a scribe. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

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. 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 panel takes its height off the steel. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Bi-fold or sliding doors at the end of the return mean the run finishes against a frame rather than a wall, and a frame gives nothing to scribe into and no movement to take up. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show.

A remade piece is cut from the same slab run wherever the slab allows, because a replacement from another batch will not match across a join. 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. Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Half-landings mean the back of the house sits at a slightly different level from the front, and a knocked-through kitchen crosses that line. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it.

A full-height piece shows a wall that is out more than an upstand does, over the extra height. What decides between them is usually the wall: what it is built of, how flat it is, and where the sockets ended up. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. The original larder or store cupboard usually survives in a corner, and that alcove is deeper than the units and squarer than the walls around it. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. The age of the plaster decides the fixing, not the finish.