Splashbacks and upstands in Regent's Park

Yes. Regent's Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW1. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. 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. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A basement is often reached by its own door under the front steps, and that door is smaller than anything else on the route. 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. Decided before fabrication starts. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

Sintered stone at 12mm changes what a staircase can take, because the same run arrives at roughly half the weight of the granite equivalent. 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. Suction lifters take a panel where hands cannot get a grip. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

Not really, and claiming otherwise would cost nothing and mean nothing. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. It reflects the local housing rather than any difference in the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted here the same way it is anywhere else on the patch. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. A spare panel is cheaper now than next year. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Reordered next year, it will not match.

Both runs are in view at the same time, so the two pieces are taken off the same area of slab and the veining is set to run the same way on each side. 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. Behind an island there is no wall to hide against. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. A window board below worktop height ends the upstand argument. 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. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Nothing goes behind the hob until the wall is signed off.

The fitting itself is one visit: a plain run is a morning, an island with splashbacks takes most of the day. No money changes hands before the template. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A picture rail, a deep skirting and a moulded architrave all sit in the way of anything that assumes flat wall from floor to ceiling. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. Height off the units, not off the old tiles.

Where a run meets an appliance, level decides whether that appliance door still clears the stone above it. A sloping floor is not the problem. The plane the unit tops finish in is. Units have to be fixed down as well as levelled. A loose carcass moves under stone. The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Full height wants a flat wall behind it.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. The realistic answer on a main road is an early slot, a spotter on the van and pieces staged in one movement rather than several trips. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Nothing this long gets walked while a warden is circling.

The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. Sinks, taps and hobs are yours to buy in any case, and they only have to be in the room for the template. Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. 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. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. Full height behind the hob is less for a tenant to scrub.