Splashbacks and upstands in Queenhithe

Yes. Queenhithe is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are EC4V, EC4R. It is worked on our City of London run, along with the rest of the Square Mile. The van is not staying on a main road for the day, so once the stone is off it goes and parks properly somewhere else. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A balcony door is the only other opening in the flat and it leads nowhere useful, so everything comes in through the front door. The plasterboard is genuinely flat here, so a full-height splashback sits well and a slim upstand looks almost redundant, but the sockets are the problem, because they are set out to the developer's original kitchen and often land at odd heights or right on a joint line. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. Where a breast interrupts a long wall the join can often go there, so it reads as a natural break rather than a line in the middle of a worktop. 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, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one.

A goods lift booked by the hour puts a clock on the whole delivery, so pieces go up in a planned order and nothing is handled twice. 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 red route means no stopping, and no stopping means exactly that, so the stone comes in from a side street or from a bay behind the property. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first.

Honestly, no, though it would be easy to claim otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement and worktop installation. That says something about the housing round here, not about the work. Quote, cut and fit are the same here as on any other part of the patch. Upgrading a builder-finish kitchen is mostly a swap, so the cost sits in the material choice rather than in the shape of the room. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Cut with the tops while the batch is open. Handover-spec kitchens are square, plumb and predictable, which means the join count is honest and driven by run length rather than by the building. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Cut as a set, so one can replace another.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Socket cut-outs are machined, not chipped in on site. Expect £110 to £550 per square metre for material supply only, with templating, fabrication and fitting on their own lines.

The returns into a breast recess are the tightest scribes in the room, and they are eased in rather than forced. 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 sets the joint, not the wall. Any socket you intend to move must be moved and re-plastered before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece of stone. 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. 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.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Where the hob lands is set out against the units and the wall behind, not off the kitchen plan. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. A peninsula end takes a panel on both faces.

Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. If the units run late the template moves, not the fit: the gap between them is fabrication. The design and quotation visit comes first. It is free and carries no obligation. Plasterboard partitions mean light scribes and clean joins, and the fabrication effort moves to the visible faces instead. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Height is taken at the shortest point of the run.

Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. Templating, fabrication and fitting are the same three lines whether the stone came from us or from you. A specification repeated across several plots has to be repeatable, which quietly rules out the natural stones where no two slabs match. 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.

Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. What changes is the surface. The carcasses underneath stay where they are. Where the frontage is a clearway the unload happens away from the door and the carry gets longer, which is a crew and time question rather than a stone one. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.