Splashbacks and upstands in Romford

Yes. Romford is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM1, RM7. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Havering. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. 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. The template happens in your kitchen and so does the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Deep original skirting is often left in behind the units, standing them off the wall, so the back edge of the stone is plotted where the carcasses actually sit. 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. A reveal in a thick wall changes where the panel stops. 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 is usually what pushes a job towards a 100mm upstand instead of a full-height panel, because an upstand rides what a panel exposes. The pier takes a joint against it, not across it.

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. 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. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. Where the bay sits some distance from the core, the carry across the car park is the longest leg of the day and gets boarded and lit. 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.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Where a family has been living around a building site for months, the finish date carries more weight than any other part of the specification. 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. 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. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Reordered next year, it will not match.

Where the sink and the hob face each other across the aisle, everything carried between them crosses the walkway, and that is the one movement the shape cannot design out. 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.

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. 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. 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. Some doors in a building need a consent letter and some need nothing at all, so the first question is which arrangement applies here rather than which one is usual. 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.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. The fit follows 5 to 10 working days after the template, and nothing is cut before that visit because nothing is cut from a plan. No money changes hands before the template. The kitchen normally sits in the back addition or a later side return, which puts the run against the oldest and least straight wall in the building. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A bowed wall gets measured at three heights first.

Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. The tap and waste have to be disconnected by a plumber before we start and reconnected once the stone is in. Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The goods lift has its own booking sheet, and a bay slot without a lift slot only gets the stone as far as the lobby. 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.

Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. A groove set needs a clear stretch of worktop beside the bowl, so it competes with the run for length instead of being free surface. Lath and plaster, a settled floor and a hall with a turn in it are the three things that decide how this job runs. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Full height needs a flat wall and a finished electrician.

Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The carry route is measured before anything is cut, so a piece that will not make the turn is split at the drawing stage rather than discovered on the day. Whether the stone can stand on end in the car is the first question, because a lift that takes 2.1m upright takes nothing like that lying flat. 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. Joint positions follow from that.