Splashbacks and upstands in North Ealing

Yes. North Ealing is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W5. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Ealing. The distance from the standing to the actual kitchen door is the number that counts, since plenty of drives finish at a side gate and a garden path. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Rushing the last piece off the van is how panels break. There is nothing to drive to and nothing to pick up, because both visits are to the property itself.

Floors are boards over joists with a solid floor only in the service rooms, and the two meet somewhere in the middle of the kitchen. Long runs mean more than one piece, and the joint belongs in a corner or on a hob centre line rather than mid-run. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. Alcove pieces get cut oversize on both scribe edges, with the true wall angles carried on the template drawing rather than assumed. 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.

A short hard approach with no steps means a full-length piece can be walked in flat by two people rather than turned up on edge. 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. Upstands make almost any turn a worktop will not. Deep gravel takes the wheels of a loaded trolley and holds them, so either boards go down or the pieces are carried. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Two hands and a clear route, or it waits on the van.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extended households run kitchens hard, and that pushes the specification towards granite or sintered stone rather than a light quartz. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did. Two households cooking in one kitchen means two of most things, and the run has to carry a second sink or a second oven without losing its working length. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

An island is a single visible piece with four finished edges and no wall to hide against, so it is the piece the whole kitchen is judged on. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Window reveals take a piece of their own. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Nothing goes behind the hob until the wall is signed off.

A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. An island is where this usually shows, standing free with no wall to level against. Variation past what packing can take up has to be corrected in the carcasses before we cut, because the template records the units as they stand. The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one.

The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. Between the template and the fit the slab is nested, cut, mitred and dry-assembled on the bench, which is work you never see and is most of the wait. A lantern or a rooflight over the room throws raking light across every horizontal surface, which shows a lipped join from the far side of the kitchen. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Panel thickness changes what the sockets need behind them.

Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. A seal is not waterproofing. It only buys time to wipe a spill up. Marble is the one people underestimate. It is porous, like granite, and wants sealing. Arts and Crafts houses have deep eaves, low windows and inglenook recesses, so the kitchen has more corners and reveals than its floor area suggests. Granite or sintered stone goes behind a range rather than quartz, because a resin binder does not enjoy sustained radiant heat. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. If the sink or hob changes after the template, the drawing changes first and nothing is cut meanwhile. Nothing is cut out in the kitchen. Cutting a bowl on site is how worktops get cracked. If the island is a few hundred millimetres longer than the usable length of a slab, a second slab gets bought to gain that overhang, and the whole slab is paid for rather than the part used. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The seam sits in shadow or it sits in a corner.