Splashbacks and upstands in Battersea Park

Yes. Battersea Park is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW11. It is run from the New Malden side, covering South West London & Surrey. Unrestricted kerbside is straightforward as long as the space in front of the property is actually clear when the van arrives. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. That is why they are crated the way they are. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

These kitchens are full of boxed soil stacks, gas risers and heating pipework, and the boxing usually stops short of the ceiling. 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. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Peninsulas set into a structural opening need the finished opening measured after the steel is cased, because the casing adds 40 to 60mm each side that the architect's drawing ignores.

Mansion blocks have wide communal stairs but many have no lift or only a small original passenger lift, and porters restrict working hours. Flat entrance doors are often original and narrower than the corridor suggests. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. 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. Tell us what the approach looks like when you book the template and it gets built into the day rather than discovered on it.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop replacement. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. A worktop replacement between tenancies is a single-day job by design, because the flat is not earning while it is empty. 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. Where kitchens turn over between tenancies the priority is a surface that survives a decade of being treated as a chopping board. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day.

A peninsula is an island with one end tied to a run, which means the join between them has to be planned rather than allowed to happen. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. The joint to the worktop is siliconed, never grouted. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Where a column lands in the run the template plots its actual outline so the stone is cut to fit around it rather than stopped short and filled. 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. Scribed, dubbed out, or set proud. Pick one. 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. Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. Same slab run as the tops.