GS Renovation creates open-plan spaces throughout Hammersmith and Fulham, turning the compartmented rooms of bay-fronted terraces into flowing kitchen-diners and knock-throughs. With more than 30 years across W6, W12, W14 and SW6, we open up period homes near Bishops Park and Westfield London with engineer-sized steel, keeping every opening properly supported.
Open-plan living in Hammersmith and Fulham terraces
The borough's Victorian and Edwardian terraces were designed as separate front and rear reception rooms, with a closet wing and side return behind, so opening them up means removing structure rather than a stud partition. A double-reception knock-through, or joining the kitchen to the rear room across a side-return infill, both rely on the same principle: a steel beam picks up the load before the wall comes down.
We work with your engineer to size the beam for the span and set it on padstones at each end. For a broken-plan feel, popular in these Fulham and Parsons Green homes, we can retain a section of wall or introduce a Crittall-style glazed divider that keeps light flowing while giving cooking and living areas some separation. Every option is designed around what the house can carry.
Party wall and building control in SW6
Because a knock-through beam usually bears into the party wall shared with next door, the work is notifiable under the Party Wall Act, and you serve notice on the neighbour before starting. This is standard on the terraced streets around Fulham Broadway and Shepherd's Bush, where each house adjoins its neighbours and the load must land on a shared wall.
An open-plan conversion is governed by the Building Regulations, so Hammersmith and Fulham Council's building control signs off the beam, its bearings and the ventilation and fire requirements of the new layout, not the planning department. Planning only applies if you alter the exterior in a conservation area or the home is listed. We coordinate the engineer, the steel and the sign-off from start to finish.
Fire and escape in an open-plan layout
Opening a W6 terrace into one space affects more than the structure. The building regulations expect a protected route out of the house, and in a traditional terrace that route is the hall and stair with doors closing onto it. Take the wall between the hall and the reception away, or open the kitchen into the stairwell, and that protection is gone, which building control will pick up at plan stage rather than at completion.
There are workable answers and we agree them with the inspector early. Interlinked mains-powered smoke and heat detection through the house is the usual starting point, sometimes with a fire door at a different position, an escape window to a habitable room, or in larger properties a sprinkler system. The right combination depends on the number of storeys. It costs far less to design in at the start than to retrofit after the plaster is on.
- Level flooring and threshold removal across the whole space
- Making good, plastering and decorating the finished space
- Rooflights and glazed roofs to bring light deep into the plan
- Knock-throughs between front and rear reception rooms
- Utility and boot room space carved out of the new layout
Why Hammersmith and Fulham Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
For open-plan conversions in Hammersmith and Fulham, GS Renovation gives you one accountable team from first drawing to final certificate. We handle the structural engineer, correctly sized steel and building control sign-off, and we keep your occupied W6 or SW6 home clean and protected throughout, all backed by more than 30 years of local structural experience.
- Cooking smells and extraction planned into an open kitchen
- Free follow-up visit after completion if anything needs attention
- Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished
- The house kept usable while the opening is formed in stages
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- Structural engineer instructed and coordinated on your behalf