Splashbacks and upstands in Little Ilford

Yes. Little Ilford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E12. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Newham. Where the front garden has been paved over completely the van stands close to the house, and the route in is still a standard front door. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The crate exists for the walk from the van. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

An inter-war terrace is wider than a Victorian one and shallower than a semi, so the kitchen is a compact square room rather than a galley. That leaves a ragged band right where the upstand has to sit, which is fine for a 100mm upstand that covers it, but a full-height splashback needs the wall made good first or it will rock on the high spots. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. The face of a breast is rarely flat, and a top returning onto it picks up that bow across the last few hundred millimetres of its length. 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. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

Where the van stands level with the front of the house a piece gets handled twice instead of five times, and stone breaks on handling rather than on the road. 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. A vertical break is easier to live with than a cracked panel. A front drive is the best thing that can happen to a fitting day, because the tail lift comes down within a few metres of the door and nothing is on a clock. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A tall panel and a timed bay is the worst combination here.

It is on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. 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. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Ordered together, or the match is luck.

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. 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. Tall panels are what push a job into a second slab. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Old breasts carry a bulge low down where the original opening was closed up, and the units stand off it before the stone is measured at all. 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 breast return is scribed on three edges. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Someone who expects to still be there in ten years asks different questions: how a honed finish marks, what a sealer does and does not do, and whether a chip by the sink can be repaired in place. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Priced on its own line so it can be deferred.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Off-street parking means the van stays put all day, so tools, packers and the offcut we would rather have than not are all within reach. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. They go in with the first load where the stop is short.

Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Day to day all three want soap and water; abrasive creams and scouring pads are what dull a polished surface. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. There is usually a shared rear alley, and whether the gate onto it is unlocked decides whether long pieces come in from the back. The ragged band left when old tiles and laminate come off together is what usually decides upstand over full height. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Upstands and splashbacks are templated after the worktop is down and settled, so they are a separate visit. These kitchens have usually been retiled twice and knocked through once, and both of those leave marks the worktop has to deal with. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The tile line that was there proves nothing about level.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. The bowl position has to be settled before templating, since the grooves are set out from it. The original plan put a larder and a back door on the same wall, and both leave awkward stubs once the room is opened up. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Old walls take a scribed upstand better than a rigid panel.