Splashbacks and upstands in Maida Vale

Yes. Maida Vale is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W9. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. With no scheme to work with there is nothing to book and nobody to ring, so the only levers left are an early arrival and a word with the neighbours. 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. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Sash windows sit in deep reveals with a working box behind the lining, so a run dying into one has to clear more than the plaster. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. Casement handles and stays swing down into the space above the worktop, so the clearance that counts is the one measured with the window open. 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 pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

Where a basement car park is the only way up from the parking level the carry starts below ground, and two lifts in one building rarely share the same internal dimensions. 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. Nothing is leaned anywhere it could slide down. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. 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 especially, and pretending otherwise would be simple enough. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. It is a fact about the local housing rather than about the work. The job is quoted, cut and fitted the same way wherever on the patch it lands. Damage in a let flat is settled as a deposit deduction, so a surface that can be repaired in place is worth more than one that has to be replaced whole. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it. The person choosing the worktop is not the person using it, and that shifts the balance from appearance towards running cost. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

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. Panels come off the same slab area as the run. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A low sill over the sink run is what decides between an upstand and stone dying into a window board, and there is often less clearance than an upstand is tall. 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 window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The tops and the wall are rarely one approval.

Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. A finished join is typically two to three millimetres, colour-matched and sanded flush. Each join is an item on the drawing, so the layout and the figure move together. 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. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Window reveals take a piece of their own.

Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. A tap under a window board still needs room for its handle to lift, which is checked at the template. The sink, tap and hob have to be physically in the room at the template, not merely ordered, because the cut-out is machined to the item itself. Where an overhang is too deep for steel on its own the choice is a leg at the end or a bracket underneath, and a bracket that lands where a knee goes is worse than no bracket at all. 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. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner.

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. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Standing a three-metre length on end takes more headroom outside the car than inside it, and a low lobby ceiling is what actually stops it. 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. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate.

Order is what matters: a slab is templated before it is cut, so an uncut slab is straightforward and one already machined for another kitchen is not. Supply through us runs £110 to £550 per square metre for the slab alone, which is the line you would be removing. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. A spare panel is cheaper now than next year.