Open-Plan Conversions Hammersmith and Fulham

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. We open up period homes near Bishops Park and Westfield London with engineer-sized steel, keeping every opening properly supported.

In Hammersmith and Fulham, 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 and Fulham: 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 and Fulham 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.

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.

The engineer we appoint sizes the beam for the span, and we 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.

Housing in Hammersmith and Fulham

Hammersmith and Fulham counts roughly 95,080 homes for Council Tax; 56% are older than 1919, 9% interwar and 34% post-war, with 77% flats and 23% houses. Since most homes here are flats, opening up a flat in Hammersmith and Fulham changes its fire escape route, which building control checks.

Open-plan flats in Hammersmith and Fulham and the escape route

77% of homes in Hammersmith and Fulham are flats, so an open-plan scheme here is more often a flat than a house, and in a flat the kitchen is the likeliest place for a fire to start. Take out the wall between the kitchen and the entrance hall, and the route from the bedrooms to the front door can end up running past the hob. The answer might be a protected hall kept as a lobby, a sprinkler or mist system designed to the relevant standard, or a second way out. Whichever it is, it has to be settled before the wall goes, because it moves the steel and the new partitions.

Full Plans is the route that settles it on paper. Hammersmith and Fulham Council aims to give a decision within 5 weeks, though it may take longer, and the approved drawings record the fire strategy next to the beam design. That record matters later. Detector positions, fire doors and any sprinkler heads are part of what was approved, so a buyer's surveyor can check the built flat against the agreed layout. It also means the wall does not come down until the escape question has an answer, which is the order the job needs.

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 is a question only for external changes, which a conservation area controls more tightly; a listed home needs listed building consent for internal work too. 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

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 25 statistical areas in Hammersmith and Fulham. Counts rounded by the VOA.

When comparing open-plan conversion in Hammersmith and Fulham with other work, it helps to read home renovation in Hammersmith and Fulham, our Hammersmith and Fulham area guide, side return infills, garage conversions, our London open-plan conversion page and Building Regulations Explained.

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 coordinate the structural engineer, install the steel to their design and see building control through to sign-off, and we keep your occupied W6 or SW6 home clean and protected throughout, all backed by our founder's 30+ years of structural experience.

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.