Splashbacks and upstands in West Hampstead

Yes. West Hampstead is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are NW6. It is worked on our central and north London run, along with the rest of Camden. Some zones are controlled for a short window in the middle of the day and open either side of it, which makes the timing of the visit the whole question. 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. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

Cornice, picture rails and deep skirting survive in converted rooms, so the run stands off the wall and the back edge follows the units rather than the plaster. 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. The wall build-up sets the depth of the return. Level has to hold across the whole room rather than along one wall, or a floor that falls end to end shows as a step where two pieces meet. 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. Each obstruction is another joint, and it is priced as one.

Turning a heavy piece on edge indoors needs floor space at both ends of the turn, so the hall is cleared of furniture before anything comes off the van. 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. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. A suspension only works if the cones and the notice are actually there on the morning, and now and then a car is sitting in the bay regardless. 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 on the short list of three for this patch, with worktop replacement first. Same template, same workshop, same fitters whichever it is. Studio and one-bed conversions put the whole kitchen against a single wall, so the job is one run and everything depends on that one length. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. A repeated spec needs a repeatable splashback. A kitchen carved out of a larger room sits under whatever the original plan left behind, so the run frequently ends at a blocked doorway or a boxed-in service. 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.

The walkway between the two runs is fixed by the units either side, so any overhang added to one worktop comes straight off the space somebody has to stand in. 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 sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

A floor that falls across the depth of a run rather than along it tips the carcasses front to back, and packing the front feet changes the overhang while it fixes the level. 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 panel takes its height off the steel. 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. 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. Two budgets, settled before anything is cut.

Doorways, the newel post and the handrail usually take the room away, rather than the stairs themselves. Splitting a run costs a join, and that is the price of getting stone into the room at all. The alternative to a join is a shorter run, which is usually the wrong thing to trade away. Two people will walk a two-metre piece in through a front door; the same hall with a three-metre piece wants four, purely because nobody can let go halfway. 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.

Old tops are screwed or glued from underneath, so the drawer boxes come out before the worktop does. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. Disposal means it goes in the van, not into the garden to wait for a collection. Where the permit is a digital session rather than a paper one, somebody in the house has to start it at the hour the van actually arrives. Full-height panels are the awkward thing to move, light enough to lift and long enough to flex on the way. A panel carried past a live lane gets a second pair of hands.

The bead where the sink and hob meet the stone is siliconed rather than sealed, and wants watching. Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Quartz and sintered stone never need sealing: quartz is non-porous and sintered stone has effectively zero porosity. Lease conditions and the other flats in the building decide when noisy work can happen, so the fitting day has a start and a finish that are not ours to set. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it.

Say what you have and where it came from before anything is booked, because thickness and batch decide what can be done with it. If your own slab breaks there is no matching replacement to hand, and that is the real difference. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do.