Splashbacks and upstands in Haggerston

Yes. Haggerston is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E2, E8. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Hackney. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Off the van last, and never in a hurry. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Electrics went in at conversion, some in surface trunking and some chased into lath and plaster, so no cable route in these rooms is safe to assume. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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 obstruction breaks the length, every time.

Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. The crate exists for the walk from the van.

One of the three we are asked for most, although worktop replacement is asked for more. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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 tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives. 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. Planned programmes run several kitchens in sequence, so template, fabrication and fitting move as a rolling operation and one uncollected key holds up more than one flat. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Two attendances need two people to be in.

Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. The combination boiler hangs on whichever wall happened to be external, and that decision has already used up a stretch of the only wall the run wanted. A full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own.

Upkeep is settled when the slab is chosen, since it belongs to the material rather than the fabrication. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. The front door of the building sits at the top of a step off a tiled path, so the carry starts outside the building rather than at the door of the flat. Sockets and switches are cut to measured positions with the faceplates off, not to the positions shown on a drawing. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre.

Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. Suspended timber floors flex underfoot, and anything that moves beneath a unit shows up later as a lipped join. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A chimney breast breaks a panel run regardless of the drawing.

The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. The joint where a peninsula meets the main run wants a gable directly under it, and where the units do not offer one, steel goes in to carry that joint instead. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A galley shows both walls at the same time.