Splashbacks and upstands in Gunnersbury

Yes. Gunnersbury is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W4, TW8. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hounslow. Time-limited bays are camera-enforced across a lot of managed estates, so the unload runs to the clock and the van moves off afterwards. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate exists for the walk from the van. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The original kitchen was a small service room, so what is there now is a knock-through and the junction between the two floors is rarely level. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. The plaster behind it is the real question. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

A car will often hold more than its doors will admit, and it is the clear width between the door edges that a piece actually has to pass through. 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. A polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. A dedicated loading bay or service yard is the easiest arrangement in a managed building, provided the slot is booked and someone has the key to the shutter. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here.

Yes, one of the three we see most, with worktop replacement ahead of it. Same visit to template, same workshop, same installers on the day. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. 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. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

Corner sinks and corner hobs sit exactly where the joint wants to be, so on an L the cut-out positions get settled before the join positions do. 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. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

Nothing is payable until the template, and the template measures the room as it stands rather than estimating from a plan. What moves the figure after templating is a change you make: a different edge, an extra cut-out, a bigger sink chosen late. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. An alcove is commonly wider at the back than at the front, so a piece cut to the opening drops in and then stands off the rear wall. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument.

The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one.

Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. A mitred join at a corner is a different job from a butt join along a run, and they are not priced the same. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. One leg of an L is nearly always the working run and the other little more than a landing space, but both are templated, cut and edged to the same standard. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. A Belfast or butler sink has to be installed and at its final height before the template, because the stone is cut to sit on it. Two runs meeting at an internal corner is the most common shape we fit, and the corner is where the decisions are. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces.