Splashbacks and upstands in Kennington

Yes. Kennington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE11. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. Plenty of zones run at the weekend as well as through the week, so a Saturday date is not automatically the easier one to work. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Wind on an open street matters more than the walk does. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A basement kitchen has a flagged or concrete floor laid straight onto the ground, so it is solid, cold and rarely within ten millimetres of level. 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. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. A junction between an original floor and a later extension slab is almost never at the same level, so units carrying a run across it need packing first. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well.

Boxed-in pipework running along the skirting looks harmless until a loaded trolley has to pass it. 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. A permit covering the street is permission to park rather than a space reserved on it, and on a full street the difference is the whole morning. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Standing a panel on the pavement is the last resort.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Cut now, stored for the next void.

Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. 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. The hob panel is sized after the extractor, not before. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. 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 obstruction breaks the length, every time. 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. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Low maintenance is the honest choice for a let.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. Sash windows sit low in the rear wall, and the sill often lands below the height a worktop wants to run past. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Making the wall good first is cheaper than working around it.

Where there is a lift, whether it can be booked out and padded matters as much as its size. If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. Where the staircase comes down into the hall the bottom treads project into the width, and nothing about that can be moved for the day. 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. Two people to a panel, however light it looks on the van.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. A tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Three stools along one side need more clear length than most plans allow, and once the seating depth is fixed the piece either grows or it loses a seat. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A joint behind a tap is a joint on show.