Splashbacks and upstands in Portsoken

Yes. Portsoken is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1, EC3N. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. Where an event closes the road entirely, the van cannot be moved once it is in, which is a different problem from not being able to park at all. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Long panels and long carries do not mix. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

Infill blocks were built on gaps in older streets, so a modern block sits between period buildings with no service access of its own. Patched plaster next to original render sits at different depths, and that step is exactly what an upstand covers. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on. Boxing built in plasterboard on a light frame will take no useful fixing, so nothing bears on it and the stone is carried off the carcasses either side. 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. Height follows the sill, not the plan.

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. 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 stand upright in the van and stay upright until they are on the wall. 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. Off the van last, and never in a hurry.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Whichever it is, the template and the fitters do not change. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. 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. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Panels for every unit, cut in one go.

A galley that is also the route to the back door is a corridor first and a kitchen second, and what the shape can take is set by the traffic going through it. 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. Vein direction carries up from the top below. Material alone is £110 to £550 per square metre, and templating, fabrication and fitting are never folded into that figure.

A stack boxed diagonally across a corner leaves a triangle of dead space, and the top is cut to that triangle rather than to a square return. 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. Scribed along the top edge as well. Boiler position, flue and any pipework drops must be settled and the wall skimmed level before templating the splashback run. Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Plastering finishes on somebody else’s timescale.

What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. The units below stay exactly as they are; only the surface is replaced. 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. The crate exists for the walk from the van.

Levelling belongs in the carcasses, on their own legs and packers. Packing takes up small variation. It is not there to hide something that belongs in the units. The check comes before the measuring rather than after, because the whole drawing is set out from that plane. Where the boxing stands proud of the finished wall the upstand behind it has to be broken into separate lengths, because one piece cannot pass it. 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. The obstruction breaks the length, every time.

The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Which side of the bowl they go is about how you stand at the sink, and it is settled before cutting. Small, roughly square kitchens with a back door and a window in the middle of the run: short lengths, few joins, and a lot to work around. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Sockets move on paper more easily than in stone.

A join added to get stone into the room is a different thing from a join added because the slab ran out, and the quote says which is which. The lift, if there is one, is measured on the diagonal, because that is the dimension a long piece actually uses. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Where the lift will not take the longest run we design a join in rather than gamble, because a piece that will not go up has to go back on the van. 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. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one.