Splashbacks and upstands in St Mary Cray

Yes. St Mary Cray is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are BR5. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bromley. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. One trip is always better than three. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Deck access means a long open walkway from the lift or the stair to the front door, and that walk happens with the piece on edge in whatever weather there is. The rear kitchen wall in ex-council flats and maisonettes is commonly dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which means mechanical fixings are hard work and the splashback is held on adhesive rather than screwed. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. For maisonette stairwells we cut to fit and bring the pieces up on edge, because you cannot swing a full length round a half-landing.

Estate roads with parking bays and grass verges you cannot drive over, plus first-floor maisonettes reached by external stairs and a shared landing. A walk-up with winders at every half-landing means the piece is rested and re-gripped on the way, so the crew size goes up before the piece size comes down. 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. Joint positions follow from that.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Sockets final before template. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

Galley runs are usually short enough to come out of a single slab, so the material band you choose does more to the total than the room shape does. 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. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. Any surface trunking or conduit has to be rerouted or accepted and boxed before templating, because the stone cannot be scribed around a live conduit on site. A let property is specified for durability and for a fixed window, and both of those are legitimate reasons to choose differently. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after.