Splashbacks and upstands in Motspur Park

Yes. Motspur Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are KT3, SW20. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Merton. A step up from the drive to the threshold turns the last two metres into a lift, and a lift is where two pairs of hands become the minimum. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. They go in with the first load where the stop is short. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

The incoming main and the stopcock come up through the floor at the old scullery wall, so whatever unit stands over them has to stay removable. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own. A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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 tall panel exposes what an upstand forgives.

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. Full height goes in only where the way in allows full height. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is 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. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets final before template. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut with the tops while the batch is open.

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. 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. Window reveals take a piece of their own. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. 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. Scribe the top edge too or it stands off. The old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. Where two people share the decision it helps to know early which of them is settling the edge profile and which is settling the budget, because it is rarely the same person for both. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. What repeats across flats is recorded once and repeated.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. Join count is a question about slab size and run length, nothing else. Veining carries through a join where both pieces come off the same slab, which is decided at nesting. 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. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. The boiler has usually been moved into the kitchen at some point, with its flue through the outer leaf and its pipework surface run to the nearest corner. 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.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. A piece travels on edge, never flat, because on edge is how stone of that length carries its own weight. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not.