Splashbacks and upstands in Harlesden

Yes. Harlesden is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW10. It is worked on our north west London run, along with the rest of Brent. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

There is a solid base under the old scullery end and suspended timber where the addition meets the house, and the two part company along that joint. 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. A hundred millimetres covers more than it looks. Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. 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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height. Where a marked loading box sits on the red route the stop is legal but timed, so the unload runs as one movement with every hand on it. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Often enough. It is one of the three, behind worktop replacement. The template, the workshop and the installers are the same either way. A converted flat is measured off the original house, so no two units in the same building have quite the same kitchen run. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room. Kitchens go in near the end of a conversion, behind the plastering and the flooring, by which point the programme has already absorbed whatever slipped earlier. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times.

A mitred corner is cut and dressed as a matched pair, and if either leg shifts by a millimetre on site the joint opens along its whole length rather than at one end. 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. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site. The material band is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off. 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. A leaseholder paying for their own kitchen inside managed stock still needs the freeholder to consent, and that consent is about the building and the common parts rather than about the worktop. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Heights that have to match are cut to match.

Every run, cut-out, edge, join and groove set is a line, which is what makes it comparable with anyone else’s. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Injected damp courses and re-rendered lower walls leave the bottom metre standing proud of everything above it. 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 carcasses stay put. Only the surface changes. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A bus lane along the frontage brings its own hours with it, and stopping in one is enforced the same way the red route is. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break.

If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. 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. Butt-jointing over the gable puts the seam a few hundred millimetres back from the corner, below the eye line instead of straight across it. 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.