Splashbacks and upstands in New Southgate

Yes. New Southgate is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N11. It is run from the Watford side, covering Hertfordshire & North London. Bay bookings are usually an hour or two, which is fine for unloading and no use at all as a place to leave the van for a day. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. 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.

Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Developer kitchens use 600mm carcasses with a chipboard top glued down, so allow time to break out the old top cleanly without damaging the units the customer wants to keep.

Industrial and railway land breaks the road pattern up, so routes are indirect; new blocks have loading bays and lifts, while the older terraces have no drives and tight permit parking near the station. The lift has to be booked and blanketed before anything moves, and that booking needs to cover the old tops coming out as well as the new stone going in. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. Developer-fitted kitchens come with thin cam-lock carcasses, which are fine under laminate and want bracing before stone goes on them. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets final before template. Housings and integrated appliances are set out for a 38mm laminate top, so dropping to 20mm or 30mm stone changes the clearances and needs checking before anything is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day.

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. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the laser 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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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 a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. Same slab run as the tops.