Splashbacks and upstands in North Kensington

Yes. North Kensington is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W10. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. 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 addition wall is half a brick thick in places and has usually had a damp course injected and been re-plastered, which leaves it neither flat nor consistent. 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. Decided before fabrication starts. Levels are the recurring problem in the back additions - the floor drops away from the house so the base units are packed and the worktop is the only thing hiding it.

Estate deliveries need the block entry code and often a lift key from the caretaker, and several blocks have a stepped podium between the parking and the entrance door. On the terraced streets the bays are resident-permit with short loading tolerance, so plan a two-vehicle approach: van in, unload, van out. 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. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut. 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. A licensed shared house has fire-door and escape-route rules that decide how and when stone can be carried through the common parts. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Same batch, same run, same day. Batching several kitchens together is the one situation where buying a whole slab is cheaper per kitchen rather than more expensive. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Corners get their own pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Decided before fabrication, not after.