Splashbacks and upstands in Limehouse

Yes. Limehouse is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E14. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Open-plan living makes the kitchen furniture rather than utility, so the island and the run behind it are nested off the same area of slab. Every socket, switch and any USB point has to be cut out of the stone to the actual measured position, so the template has to be taken with the faceplates off and the back boxes visible. Decided before fabrication starts. Waterside flats have balcony thresholds and glazing right at the end of the run, so the last 300mm of the top usually needs a bespoke cut rather than a square end.

The main east-west road is a red route with a tunnel approach, so all loading happens on the residential side streets which are CPZ-controlled with tight bays. Basin-side buildings have secure gates and some blocks are only reachable across pedestrian bridges, which rules out trolleying and makes it a carry. A side gate and a back door mean the stone never goes through the house at all, which keeps the dust and most of the risk outside. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation, worktop templating and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Same batch, same run, same day. 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. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. The wall has to be ready.