Splashbacks and upstands in Swiss Cottage

Yes. Swiss Cottage is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW3, NW6. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Distance from tail lift to door is the whole risk here. You never have to visit anything or collect anything: we template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen.

These blocks were built with a lift from new, which will usually take a worktop and almost never takes a full-length island piece. Mansion block kitchens are full of boxed-in soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing is usually plywood or plasterboard that stops short of the ceiling, so the splashback run gets broken up by returns rather than running clean wall to wall. Blown plaster comes off before stone goes on. 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. 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. A downstand sets the panel height, not the wall units.

A car that answers every floor button pressed while a piece is standing in it needs to be held on the key, and the key usually lives at a desk that wants notice. 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. That is agreed at template, not on fitting day. 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. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. A long carry turns a light piece into an awkward one.

It is inside the three we do most here, under worktop replacement. Either way: same template, same workshop, same fitters. Extension work runs late far more often than it runs early, and the worktop is close to the last thing in, so the date agreed at the start is rarely the date that happens. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf.

A galley closed at one end takes a short return across the top, and that little piece carries the same edge work, the same handling and nearly the same cost as a full length. 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. Tall panels are what push a job into a second slab. Supply only, material is £110 to £550 per square metre, with templating, fabrication and fitting quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. Behind the boxing it becomes two pieces. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. 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. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Agreed with whoever is paying for both.

The same firm templates and fits. Nobody else is brought in to install. Nothing is measured until the sink, the tap and the hob are in the room to measure against. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. Freeholder consent, a works agreement and proof of insurance are often wanted before a van is allowed to unload. What decides between a slim upstand and full-height stone is nearly always the wall rather than the taste. A return into a reveal is its own scribed piece.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. The units stay where they are and only the surface changes. If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. A single red line has hours and a double red line does not, and the difference decides whether an early start is a plan or a penalty. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Panels come across in one pass with the route already cleared.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Every piece goes in by hand and stone does not bend, so the tightest turn on the route sets the longest piece. Piece length is set by the internal diagonal of the lift car, not by the length of the slab. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. The panel is sized to the turn, not to the wall alone.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Granite is porous to varying degrees, so it is sealed when we fit it and topped up over the life of the worktop. Bleach and limescale remover harm a polished finish rather than clean it, whichever material is on the units. The original kitchen was a small service room, so what is there now is a knock-through and the junction between the two floors is rarely level. Each return needs its own piece with a mitred or butted external corner, and those pieces should come off the same slab so the movement lines up across the corner. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return.