Splashbacks and upstands in Noel Park

Yes. Noel Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N22. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Haringey. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. 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 plaster behind it is the real question. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. 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 reveal decides where the stone dies.

Every internal doorway on the way through is another frame to clear, and internal doors come off their hinges rather than being propped open. 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. Where the nearest legal space is a couple of streets back, the walk with each piece becomes the job, and the crew is sized for walking rather than wheeling. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

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. 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. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

A scribe has a working limit, and past twenty millimetres or so the back edge starts eating depth the run cannot spare. 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. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand. 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. Flats bought out of managed stock keep the original kitchen dimensions long after the ownership changed, so the layout says very little about who is paying for the work. 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.

The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. A template on a normal kitchen takes two to three hours in the room. Ceilings are generous and the rooms are narrow, so the runs are long, the aisle is tight and there is nowhere to stand a slab on edge. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. The flatter the wall, the taller the stone.

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 template can be taken with the old top still down, which is why one visit covers both. Applying for a suspension means naming a length of kerb and a date, and moving the date generally means applying for it again. 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.

Level is checked at the template, which is the point of measuring in the room rather than off a drawing. Units have to be fitted, fixed and level before templating, and it is better to hear that at the template than on the fitting day. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. 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 decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab.

If a piece cannot be got in at all, we say so at the template rather than on the day. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. A pendant light hanging in the middle of a hall ceiling sets the angle a piece can be tilted to, and it is the measurement nobody thinks to take. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one.