Splashbacks and upstands in Waterloo

Yes. Waterloo is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE1. It is worked on our south London run, along with the rest of Lambeth. 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. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Floors are suspended timber over a shallow void and have moved, so the units are packed and levelled before anything is set on them. Where a client wants a full-height piece behind the hob, it usually sits in the old chimney recess, and that recess is rarely square top to bottom or side to side, so it has to be templated as a trapezium rather than a rectangle. The wall makes that decision, not the brochure. In the listed cottages you cannot chase walls or fix through original fabric, so upstands get bonded rather than mechanically fixed and the tolerances have to be right first time.

This is the hardest access area in the borough, congestion charge, red routes on almost every approach, no residents' bays available to trades and constant pedestrian traffic. Everything is booked, early and short. A narrow entrance hall with a turn into the back of the house caps the longest piece we can physically get in, whatever the run itself measures. Where the route is tight we break a long splashback at a natural vertical joint instead of forcing one panel through. 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 new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. 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. Sockets final before template.

The catch with a galley is that both runs are seen end-on from the doorway, so any difference in overhang between the two reads immediately. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Corners get their own pieces. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

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. An upstand rides what a panel exposes. 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. Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. 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.