Open-Plan Conversions Hammersmith

GS Renovation creates open-plan living in Hammersmith, where 77% of homes are flats, so a knock-through is often inside a converted terrace or block. Abdelaaziz Saaid, our founder, has 30+ years on the tools and reads the lease before the wall, since a leaseholder rarely owns the structure.

In Hammersmith, a knock-through finished as one room typically costs £3,000 to £8,000 or more, including the steel beam (indicative London ranges, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Hammersmith: the structural engineer we appoint designs the steel, we install it, and building control signs it off.

How the job runs

1. Free site survey at your Hammersmith address, covering the walls, services and floor levels, and an itemised quote.
2. The engineer we appoint sizes the beam, and the work is registered with Hammersmith and Fulham Council building control or an approved inspector. On a shared wall you serve the party wall notice as building owner; we supply the drawings.
3. Props in, opening cut, beam on padstones; then floors, heating and electrics are joined up.
4. Building control inspects the steel before it is covered. We finish the room, and the completion certificate follows.

Opening up a Hammersmith terrace

In the W6 houses still in one ownership, a front reception, a middle room and a closet-wing kitchen are divided by walls that carry real load. Taking out the wall between the receptions and reworking the rear means steel sized by a structural engineer, and in a converted flat that steel may also carry the floor of the flat above. Broken-plan touches, like a Crittall divider, can keep some separation where you want it.

We install the beams the same disciplined way every time: prop the structure above, cut in stages, then lift the RSJs onto padstones and pack them tight before the props come out. Done well, the front bay light runs straight through to a bright kitchen-diner at the back. It is a change these W6 terraces take to naturally when the structure is handled properly.

Housing in Hammersmith

Hammersmith's housing, as the Council Tax list records it, is about 15,040 homes: 23% houses, 77% flats, with 56% pre-1919, 9% interwar and 34% built since 1945. Where most homes are flats, opening up a flat in Hammersmith changes the protected route from the bedrooms to the front door, so building control checks the escape before any wall comes out.

Opening up a listed or locally registered Hammersmith home

The statutory list includes almost 500 buildings in Hammersmith and Fulham, and changing one inside or out without Listed Building Consent is a criminal offence. For an open-plan scheme that matters more than for most work, because the historic room plan can be part of what the listing protects. The front and back parlours, the hall and the position of the stair may all carry significance. A proposal to open a listed house up is therefore designed with the consent in mind, keeping nibs, downstands or a wide opening that still reads as two rooms.

The borough also has a Local Register of Buildings of Merit, adopted in 2000, for buildings valued locally for their townscape, architecture or history. A house on that register is not listed, so an internal open-plan scheme there needs building regulations approval but not Listed Building Consent. The difference is worth confirming before design starts, because owners sometimes assume the stricter regime applies and hold back, or assume the lighter one applies and are wrong. We check which list, if any, covers the address at the first survey in Hammersmith.

Consents and sign-off in W6

If the new steel must sit in the wall your W6 home shares with the next house or flat, the Party Wall Act covers that cut. You serve the notices before work begins, which matters in these continuous terraced runs between the Thames and Brook Green where houses share their flank walls with those on either side.

The structural side is a Building Regulations matter, inspected and certified by Hammersmith and Fulham Council's building control rather than requiring planning permission for the internal works. We coordinate the engineer's design, the propping and beam installation, the inspections and the making good, so you get a genuinely open, well-lit space with all the paperwork in order and no loose ends.

• Bi-fold and sliding door openings onto the garden
• Openings formed in stages to keep the home usable
• Heat loss and acoustic considerations before the wall comes out

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Hammersmith Broadway, Brook Green, Ravenscourt Park North and Ravenscourt Park South. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Plenty of Hammersmith projects start with one job and grow, so it helps to see home renovation in Hammersmith, open-plan conversion across Hammersmith and Fulham, builders in London, converting a garage into living space, open-plan conversion anywhere in London and Kitchen Island Guide.

The GS Renovation Difference in Hammersmith

In a Hammersmith flat the order is freeholder consent, then survey, then steel, then certificate. We arrange the engineer's beam design, give you the drawings your party wall notice needs, install the steel and see building control through to sign-off, working tidily in your W6 home. That order is how our founder has worked through 30+ years on the tools.

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.