Splashbacks and upstands in Notting Hill

Yes. Notting Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W11. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Kensington and Chelsea. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. The longer the walk, the fewer the panels per trip. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A semi has a side passage, and whether it is wide enough to carry a piece flat and turn it in at the back door is the first thing worth measuring. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. Legs bottoming out on hard concrete or an uneven screed mean the tops of the carcasses are not one plane, and that is picked up at template rather than on fitting day. 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 sill caps the upstand before anything else does.

A step up off the pavement means the piece is lifted to the threshold before it is carried anywhere, and that first lift is the one that wants four hands. 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. Panel size is checked against the tightest point rather than the average one. A bay shared across a parade of shops turns over all day, so the arrival time matters more than the length of the booking does. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A narrow gap between parked cars decides how a panel turns.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop fabrication and worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. 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. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut as a set, so one can replace another. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The offcuts finish the room.

Two runs of similar length nest as a pair off one slab, and if one of them grows by a few hundred millimetres the pair stops fitting and the yield changes for both. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Panel widths answer to the slab before the wall. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units. 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. Plastering finishes on somebody else’s timescale.

An island often runs in one piece where a wall run cannot. A join sits over a cabinet gable. It never spans a gap and never runs through a cut-out. A join cannot cross a cut-out, so a sink mid-run takes away the position you would have used. Where the aisle is too tight the usual answer is a reduced-depth top on one side, and a 500mm run is a different cut, a different sink and a different drainer to a 600mm one. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Vein direction carries up from the top below.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. The sink and hob are lifted out with the old top and kept aside if you are reusing them. Building management is often the real gate rather than the bay itself, since the barrier, the shutter and the lift each need someone with a fob. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room.

The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. Hoisting through a window is occasionally the answer, and it is a decision made at the template, not improvised on the fitting day. A Victorian hall arch sits lower than the ceiling either side of it, and it is the point a piece carried on edge meets first. 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. They come in last so nothing is carried past them.

If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Upstand or splashback, the stone is cut from the same slab run as the worktop, at the same time, so the batch actually matches. 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 full-height panel in a chimney recess is templated as a trapezium, since that recess is square in neither direction. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on.