Splashbacks and upstands in Hurlingham

Yes. Hurlingham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW6. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Internal walls are lath on timber studs while the flank walls are brick, so two walls in the same kitchen take a fixing completely differently. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off 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. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. The crate exists for the walk from the van.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. 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. Plot spec panels are ordered by the plot, not the room. 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. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times.

Some of them overhang on two sides at once, and each side is worked out separately, because the load on an edge people lean against is not the load on an edge people walk past. 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. Upstands follow the return round the corner. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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 downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall trade answers to a different budget.

On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Nothing in a house of this age is square, and the kitchen is usually the part that has been altered most often. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Boxed pipework decides the panel width before taste does.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. No installed price per square metre is published, because it is not a real number. Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. 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 decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Grooves are machined into the surface rather than applied to it, so there is nothing to come loose later. The kitchen normally sits in the back addition or a later side return, which puts the run against the oldest and least straight wall in the building. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Making the wall good first is cheaper than working around it.

The joint between splashback and worktop is siliconed, never grouted, so it can move a little without cracking. Tiling and stone can meet, but where they meet is decided before the template rather than after. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Many were built with a solid sub-floor to the rear rooms, so the kitchen floor is concrete and level while the front of the house is suspended timber. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure.