Splashbacks and upstands in Millbank

Yes. Millbank is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1P. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip. The work comes to you. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, with nothing to visit or collect.

Floor-to-ceiling glazing lights the worktop from one side all day, which shows every ripple in a polished surface and every gap at a scribe. 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. Sockets in a stud wall move more easily than sockets in brick. Sill height gets settled with the template on site, because it is one of the few dimensions nobody has measured before we arrive. 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. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument.

Once a long piece is in on the diagonal there is no room left for anyone else, so it travels up alone and is met on the landing above. 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. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. 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. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

No, not particularly, and it would be easy to say otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That is the local housing talking rather than anything about the job. It is priced, cut and fitted no differently here than anywhere else we cover. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. One conversion drawing repeats its mistakes six times. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut now, stored for the next void.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. 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. A galley shows both walls at the same time. The stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted separately.

A window board sitting below finished worktop height leaves two choices, drop the top under it or notch the stone around it, and both cost more than a straight run. 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. Full height wants a flat wall behind it. 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. One owner can take a date next week while the flat below needs three weeks of notice, so several kitchens in one building end up scheduled by the slowest permission. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run, so it is settled at drawing stage.

Chips at an edge or a corner are the usual form, because that is where stone is least supported. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. The workmanship guarantee runs 5 years on every kitchen we fit. Pieces get staged in the ground floor lobby and sent up singly, which needs somewhere to stand them where nobody will walk into them. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. A panel that would need turning indoors is turned outside instead.

Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. An external stair, a side return or a rear garden counts as carry and is measured the same way. 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. Panels travel on edge in a frame, and the frame needs the same clearance the finished piece does. What can be got into the room decides the height above the worktop.

Carcasses stay. Surface changes. That is the whole of it. Taking the old tops off and disposing of them is its own line on the quote rather than something folded into the stone price. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. 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. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room.

A boiling tap needs a hole of its own and a cupboard below for the tank, so the units change too. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. 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. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.