Splashbacks and upstands in Kingston upon Thames

Yes. Kingston upon Thames is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT1, KT2. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of the borough. A red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The window line is a continuous ribbon with structural mullions, so a run under it stops at a mullion rather than at a wall. The plasterboard is genuinely flat here, so a full-height splashback sits well and a slim upstand looks almost redundant, but the sockets are the problem, because they are set out to the developer's original kitchen and often land at odd heights or right on a joint line. The plaster behind it is the real question. A lightweight stud partition will not carry a breakfast bar or a peninsula end, and stone finds that out faster than laminate ever did. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

The step and the gap at the car threshold catch a trolley wheel, so the piece comes off the trolley and goes in by hand. 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. Suction lifters take a panel where hands cannot get a grip. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, or the join will say so. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Ordered together, or the match is luck.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. 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 seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner. Supply-only material is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately rather than rolled in.

Dot-and-dab plasterboard sounds solid and is hollow behind, so anything fixed through it has to hit a dab or a batten rather than a void. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. Whoever manages the block controls the lift booking, the bin store and the visitor parking, and none of that sits in the gift of the household whose kitchen it is. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Fitted with the tops if it was decided with them.

Taking the old tops away is a line rather than an assumption, so it comes off if you do not want it. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. Cut-outs, edge profile and join count are itemised, so taking one out removes a line rather than starting an argument. Taped internal angles in plasterboard belly at the corner, so the run picks up a few millimetres over the last 300mm and a plan-angle mitre will not close. 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. The panel takes its height off the steel.

Dark and heavily veined stone shows a join more than a pale even one, which is worth knowing before the slab is picked. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. A galley shows both walls at the same time.

Small variation is taken up by packing under the top on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Where a partition has been built off the floor screed rather than off the slab, it moves, and a mitre bonded across that corner is the first thing to open. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

Two bowls means two cut-outs and a bridge of stone between them, which decides where the sink can go. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. The panel behind a hob is usually the tallest piece in the kitchen, and its height is set by the extractor above it rather than by the wall cupboards either side. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.