Splashbacks and upstands in Noak Hill

Yes. Noak Hill is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are RM3. It is run from the Essex side, covering Essex & East London. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. Upstands travel in a crate and can wait on the van, which gives some flexibility a full-height panel does not. 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.

A range or an Aga in an original recess is usually immovable, so the run is designed around it and the clearances come from the appliance. Long runs mean more than one piece, and the joint belongs in a corner or on a hob centre line rather than mid-run. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Oil boilers and range flues take up wall space out here, so we survey what is actually fixed to the wall before agreeing a run length.

Country lanes with no restrictions and generous private hardstanding, though verges are soft and there is nowhere sensible to turn a large van on some stretches. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. 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. It decides panel size before anything is cut. 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 fabrication. 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. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted. A new extension slab is not automatically level, and that wants checking before templating rather than after the stone is cut. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Upstands follow the run exactly, so every internal and external corner is a separate mitred or butted piece. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. 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. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. The range and extractor must be sited and the window cill finished before the template, as both fix the vertical limits of the splashback. These kitchens tend to be compact and reasonably square, so the fixed template, fabrication and fitting lines are a larger share of the total than the stone is. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall has to be ready.