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. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A two-up two-down has a kitchen that was never designed to be one, so the run is short, the ceiling is low and every millimetre of depth gets argued over. 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. Decided before fabrication starts. Measure the front door leaf, not the frame - on this estate a 620mm-deep top will go through on edge but a 900mm island top will not go through at all.

Conservation area with narrow front doors straight onto a short path, no rear vehicular access, and permit parking that fills up by mid-morning. The doors on these cottages are often under 760mm, which decides everything. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. 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.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. 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. 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.

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. 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 template plots the intermediate points. 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. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. The wall has to be ready.