Splashbacks and upstands in Notting Hill

Yes. Notting Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W11. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. 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. 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. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The rear room is generous with a chimney breast in one corner, so the run gains a return and two scribed ends whatever the plan drew. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. Measure the turn at the foot of the area steps before you cut anything, because a 3m piece that clears the stair will still refuse the 90-degree swing at the bottom.

Almost the whole area is conservation area with single yellow and RBKC residents' bays, so a slab van gets a loading window rather than a parking space. Most houses are entered either up a raised front step or down external area steps into the lightwell, and that bottom landing is where slabs get stuck - it is often under 900mm deep with a right-angle turn straight into the kitchen door. Door width, hall width and the diagonal at the turn are three separate measurements, and it is the diagonal that catches people out. 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. 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.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. 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.

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. 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 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. A street with houses in single occupation next to the same houses cut into flats produces two completely different jobs from the same elevation. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Same slab run as the tops.