Splashbacks and upstands in Petersham

Yes. Petersham is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are TW10. It is worked on our south west London run, along with the rest of Richmond upon Thames. A skip, a delivery lorry or a run of scaffolding takes the frontage the van needed, so the street is worth a look the day before rather than on the morning. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands. Nothing needs visiting and nothing needs collecting: the template is in your kitchen and so is the fit.

That rear wall carries the back door and the only window, which leaves very little uninterrupted length for a sink run. 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. Dry lining behind a panel needs a fixing plan of its own. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces.

Grass and gravel will not take a loaded trolley, so a boarded track gets laid from the gate to the door before the first piece moves. 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. Panels are carried on edge from the tail lift to the wall. Where parking runs down both sides the road is left as a single lane, and a van standing in it has to be somewhere it does not stop a bin lorry. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is 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. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Less to clean, for whoever cleans it. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

The offcut taken out of the middle for a hob is a large usable piece, and it is worth deciding early whether it becomes an upstand or goes in the skip. 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 sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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. Nothing gets hidden behind a full-height panel. 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. What repeats across flats is recorded once and repeated.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. What decides it is not the width of the stairwell but the length of piece that can be turned in it. A step up to a patio or a raised threshold at the back door means the piece is lifted rather than rolled, and that is where the crew size gets decided. 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. The frame they travel in needs the clearance as well.

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. It is walked round rather than looked at from one side, so the direction the veining runs along it cannot be hidden against a wall the way it can on a perimeter run. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Return ends are polished, not left sawn.

Ask for the lines rather than the total. One number for a kitchen tells you nothing you can check. Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. The reveal decides where the stone dies.

Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable where the two pieces meet. It is quoted by area like the worktop, so a long run is a material line rather than a trim. A full-height piece behind the hob has to allow for the extractor, so that gets settled first. Many have had the ground floor chimney breast removed to gain three hundred millimetres, and the gained strip is newer blockwork standing proud of the old plaster. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Old plaster rarely gives you a flat metre.