Splashbacks and upstands in Muswell Hill

Yes. Muswell Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N10. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. Permit hours are what matters, not the permit itself, because a bay that frees up at six in the evening is no use for a template at ten. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The bay at the front and the back addition at the rear were built to different standards, and the kitchen is nearly always in the weaker of the two. Lath-and-plaster on the party wall and the chimney breast returns almost never runs true, so a 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer here, it rides the bow and hides the junction the worktop can never close on its own. Panels expose a wall; upstands forgive one. Walls that bow along their length are the normal condition rather than the exception, and a straight-cut back edge will show a shadow gap at one end and touch at the other. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel.

The top step is rarely the end of it, because a door swinging out onto the landing has to be held back before a piece can come off the flight. 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 polished face close to an edge does not survive a knock. Without a bay the van ends up on a single yellow with a crew member watching it, which takes a pair of hands off the carry. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. 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. 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. 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. 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.

A downdraught extractor takes a long slot out of the middle of the piece and a motor housing out of the cabinet below it, so what sits under the top is settled before anything is cut. 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. Stone is £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and the templating, the fabrication and the fitting each carry their own line.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. The reveal decides where the stone dies. The chimney breast recess must be replastered and fully dry, and the hob and extractor positions fixed, before anyone templates a full-height piece into it. Where ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. One visit for upstands, two for full-height panels.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. Where there is no room for a separate drainer, grooves are usually what gets specified instead. Grooves and an undermounted bowl are usually specified together, since the grooves are run to the bowl edge. Original quarry tile is often still down under two or three later floor coverings, which is why the finished floor height is rarely what anyone expects. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Siliconed to the top, never grouted.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Power and waste come up through the floor, and where they surface decides which cabinet can hold a sink and which one cannot. 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.

Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. 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. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. 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. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

There are only ever a few legal positions, and the one taken is furthest from the light. An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. Slabs come in finite sizes, so a long run needs a join whatever the room looks like. A hob cut-out and the floor penetration feeding it have to land over the same cabinet, and where they do not it is the stone that gets redrawn rather than the pipework. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A galley shows both walls at the same time.