What is an example of renovation?

A typical example is the full renovation of a 1930s semi, a job we do regularly around Bromley and Beckenham. The house usually comes to us in original or lightly touched condition: old wiring, an ageing boiler, woodchip wallpaper, a small kitchen shut off from the dining room.

The work runs room by room but starts with strip out. Carpets up, old kitchen and bathroom out, blown plaster off. Then the whole house is rewired and replumbed with a new boiler and radiators, because there is no point fitting nice finishes over sixty-year-old services. In the kitchen we usually take down the wall to the dining room, with a steel beam over, to make one kitchen-diner across the back of the house. The bathroom is stripped to bare walls and refitted with new sanitaryware and tiling. Bedrooms get replastered where needed, new flooring and full decoration. The hallway keeps its original doors and staircase, sanded and repainted rather than replaced. In the loft we top up the insulation, and single glazed windows come out for new double glazed units.

From the street the house looks the same. Inside it runs like a new build. That is renovation: the shell and the character stay, everything that does the work gets renewed. For a whole-house job like this we price from £1,200 per square metre, confirmed with a fixed written quote once we have surveyed the actual house.