Splashbacks and upstands in Olympia

Yes. Olympia is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are W14. It is worked on our west London run, along with the rest of Hammersmith and Fulham. A market day closes the street to traffic for the morning and hands it back in the afternoon, which moves the visit rather than cancelling it. 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. The measuring and the fitting are both done at the property, so there is nothing to visit or collect.

Rooms are tall with deep window reveals, and a run finishing into a reveal is templated to it rather than assumed square. 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. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. 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. A bowed wall shows on a panel and hides under an upstand.

Carrying through the house means protecting the whole route first: floor boarded, banister padded, and the front door held open on a wedge rather than by hand. 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. They come in last so nothing is carried past them. A timed school street shuts the road either side of the school day, so the van goes in between those two windows or it does not go in. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Long panels and long carries do not mix.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop fabrication. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. An open-plan extension puts the worktop in the middle of the living space, so it is looked at from the sofa as well as worked on. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. The offcuts finish the room. Extension budgets are usually well spent by the time the worktop is ordered, which is where the choice between quartz and a thinner sintered stone actually gets made. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it.

Island units are rarely fixed to anything at first fix, so they get screwed to the floor and levelled against the perimeter run before the stone is measured at all. 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. A galley shows both walls at the same time. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. 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. Mitred returns come from one place in the slab. 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. Two flats with an identical layout can want entirely different things from the same run of worktop, which is why the quote follows the run rather than the address. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Priced on its own line so it can be deferred.

They are cut with a fall towards the bowl, which is why they cannot be added on site later. They read strongly across a dark stone and are nearly invisible on a pale one, so look before deciding. Chimney breasts and the alcoves either side of them break the run into short pieces before anyone has drawn a kitchen. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Sockets cut in the shop, not on site.

Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. If the carcasses are corrected, the template is taken again, since a drawing off units that then moved is worthless. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Two walls each a degree out give an internal corner two degrees out, and the whole of that error lands in the mitre. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. An event-day suspension can override a bay that is perfectly usable the rest of the week, so a booked space gets checked again nearer the time. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. A piece with a bowl and a hob cut into it is the fragile one, and it is handled accordingly. Knee room under a breakfast bar is measured from the face of the cabinets rather than from the edge of the stone, so a deep apron quietly eats the depth somebody actually gets to sit in. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.