Splashbacks and upstands in Hale End

Yes. Hale End is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E4. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Waltham Forest. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. One trip is always better than three. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

The larder had a slate or terrazzo shelf on its cold wall, heavy enough that it usually got left in place when everything else went. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. Decided before fabrication starts. Two alcove pieces will not swap over however similar they look, so they are marked left and right at the bench and stay that way to the van. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

Rear access usually lets us fit longer pieces whole, so the join count ends up decided by the slab rather than by the building. 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. Joint positions follow from that. Block paving bedded on sand can rut under a fully loaded van, and that is said to the customer beforehand rather than explained afterwards. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. 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. 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. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

On a book-matched pair the halves are laid out so the mirror line runs down the length of the piece, and once that line is set the top cannot be turned round to suit anything else. 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. Every internal corner is two pieces, not one. The supply-only figure for material runs £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are lines of their own.

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. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. 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. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

Join count and position are settled from the template drawing rather than improvised on the fitting day. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. What you get is a line rather than a step, because the pieces are levelled to each other first. A waterfall leg is a separate piece bonded to the top on a mitre, so the floor it stands on has to be level enough for that mitre to close along its full height. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Long walls break where the worktop breaks.

Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The cheap way to make eight kitchens look specified.

Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. A side door into a lobby with a cloakroom off it is the standard arrangement, so there is a second way in that misses the hall altogether. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. Height, returns and sockets, all settled on site.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. The tap hole is drilled in the workshop too, and its position depends on how far the tap has to swing. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Upstands follow the return round the corner.