Splashbacks and upstands in West Heath

Yes. West Heath is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE2, DA16. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Bexley. Where the van cannot turn on the plot it has to arrive already facing the right way, so the approach along the street is part of the plan. 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. Both visits happen in your kitchen, the template and the fit, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The chimney breast served a back boiler and is usually still standing, so there is a shallow recess on one side of the room. These kitchens are nearly always retiled at least twice, and stripping the old tiles takes the bottom course of plaster with it because the original laminate top ran underneath the tiles rather than up to them. A bowed wall is what decides between an upstand and a panel. Once the carcasses are levelled the gap under the plinth varies along the run, and that varying gap is the honest record of what the floor is doing. 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.

Even an easy kerbside carry wants the pavement clear at the tail lift, because a three-metre piece on edge has a swing radius nobody expects until it is swinging. 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. The break goes where a joint reads as deliberate. A drive behind an electric gate depends on somebody being in to open it and on the gate staying open while the load comes off. 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.

Not particularly. It would be easy to say yes and leave it there. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is about what people have here rather than how it gets done. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Conversions put kitchens where the services could be made to reach rather than where they belong, so runs are short and interrupted. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. One damaged panel, one twin already on the shelf. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do.

A peninsula projects into circulation space, so its outer corners usually take a radius rather than a point, and that radius is agreed at template rather than assumed. 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. Corners get their own pieces. Material runs £110 to £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting each get their own line.

A wall line that runs level over a floor that does not means the finish closes up on the plinth at one end, which is joinery rather than something the stone can answer. 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 old tiling must be off and the wall made good and dry before templating, not on fitting day. A quartz sample left on the counter for a week under the actual kitchen lights settles more arguments than any showroom, and an owner is the only person in a position to do that. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Full height is decided before fabrication, not after.

Material is quoted supply only and templating, fabrication and fitting sit on their own lines, so it is visible which part is stone and which is labour. The edge profile is its own line, so a shaped edge and a square one are two different figures. What is quoted is what the drawing says, and the figure does not move unless the drawing does. Where two pieces meet over a fall in the floor the join has to be flush to the hand as well as true to the level, because the eye reads the join and forgives the room. It decides whether the run gets one continuous piece or a set of separate lengths with a joint at every obstruction. Upstands sit tight because both edges are cut.

Nothing is payable in advance of the template. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. The template produces a drawing, and the workshop cuts to that drawing once you agree it. A side passage and a back door mean the stone rarely has to come through the house, which changes the job more than most people expect. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Same slab run, same day, same batch.

Delivery to the workshop has to be arranged and dated, since nothing is nested until it is there. The workmanship guarantee is the same either way. It does not extend to a material we did not supply. Stone cut to somebody else’s drawing cannot usefully be re-cut to yours. Party-wall and lease conditions in a converted building set when noisy work can happen, which shapes the fitting day more than the kitchen does. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Undermount bowls are cut and polished in the workshop and dry-fitted to the stone on the bench before anything is loaded. Each cut-out is priced on its own line, so a range, a bowl and a half, a boiling tap and a drainer are four items rather than one. Peninsula tops are often the longest single piece in the kitchen, so if anything in the layout is going to force a second slab it is generally this one. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The run decides where that joint falls.