Splashbacks and upstands in Whitehall Park

Yes. Whitehall Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are N19. It is worked on our north London run, along with the rest of Islington. A van waiting on a loading concession has somebody standing with it, because a vehicle left unattended is the one that collects the ticket. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. These travel flat and get carried on edge, and both want room. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The communal stair is wide and handsome and the flat door at the top of it is a standard leaf, which is where a long piece stops. 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. Nothing goes on a wall that will not hold it. A run can measure dead right at both ends and still belly out in the middle, which only appears once the template plots the intermediate points. 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. Set it proud on a subframe and the gap becomes deliberate.

The hall is the only way in and out for whoever lives there, so it is cleared and then kept clear for as long as pieces are moving. 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. A door frame catches a tall panel long before a short one. Controlled hours that end in the middle of the afternoon make the second half of the day easy and put the whole problem in the first half. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. Where the van has to move, the panels come in first.

Not really, and there is no sense dressing it up. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop installation. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It gets quoted, cut and fitted exactly as it would anywhere else on the patch. In a converted house the flat entrance and the internal doorway are usually tighter than the communal stairs, and that is easy to overlook. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Sockets move on site far more often than plans do. 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. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. The extension electrician finishes after the drawing did.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. 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. The run decides where that joint falls. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Where a corner is a couple of degrees off, a mitre cut to a theoretical ninety degrees opens on the wall side and there is no closing it afterwards. 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. 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 ownership is split across a building, the common parts belong to someone else and the carry route is negotiated rather than assumed. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Two attendances need two people to be in.

Templating and fitting are two visits, not one, and the gap between them is when the stone is actually cut. On the fitting day floors and door frames are protected, joins clamped flush, sink and hob sealed. No payment is due before the template. Injected damp courses and re-rendered lower walls leave the bottom metre standing proud of everything above it. Splashbacks come off the same slab run as the tops, which means the decision has to be made before fabrication starts. Panel joints land over a unit line, never mid-span.

How the slab has been stored is worth telling us, because stone kept flat is not stone off a rack. 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. Several units in one building are fitted out to the same drawing, so an error on that drawing is an error repeated in every flat. Upstands are the cheapest way to finish several kitchens consistently, and they come out of the offcuts the tops leave behind. Upstands turn batch offcuts into finished rooms.

An old stone top is heavier coming out than the new one is going in, and leaves in sections. What comes out goes by the same route the new stone comes in by, which is why that route is walked before anything is lifted. The carcasses stay. Only the surface changes. A short lunchtime window of control exists to keep commuters off the street, and it still catches a trade van standing there for an hour. 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.

An upstand covers the gap where the worktop meets a wall that is not flat, which is its real job. Stone up a wall is heavier than tile and bonded rather than hung, so the wall has to be sound. If it is a decision for later, say so at the template: the match is a question about the batch. Kitchens in the upper flats often sit in the return wing at half-landing level, so there are three or four steps inside the flat before the room is reached at all. A 100mm upstand bedded on silicone is the honest answer where the plaster bows, because it rides what a tall panel exposes. The age of the plaster decides the fixing, not the finish.