GS Renovation creates open-plan living across Islington, opening up the compartmentalised ground floors of Barnsbury, Highbury and Holloway terraces into bright kitchen-diners, and refining the layouts of Clerkenwell's warehouse conversions. We handle the steel and the finishes as one job.
Open-plan kitchen-diners in Islington terraces
The classic Islington open-plan conversion opens the rear of a Victorian terrace, knocking the kitchen through to the middle room to create one long, sociable kitchen-diner. Because the dividing wall is load-bearing solid brick, this means a steel beam, padstones and a building control inspection, and often a Party Wall Act notice where the wall is shared.
Where there is a side return, we can go further and infill it to widen the space, bringing in light through rooflights and glazed doors, a hugely popular upgrade on the borough's terraces.
Broken-plan options for period homes
Open-plan is not the only route. In Islington's finer Georgian houses, where the reception rooms carry original cornicing and shutters, a broken-plan layout, part-height walls or a Crittall-style glazed divider can open the space up while keeping some separation and the period character.
Whichever route suits your home, we level the floors across the rooms, remove thresholds, and rework the lighting, heating and electrics so the finished space reads and functions as one.
What you give up when walls go
Opening a floor up is not all gain, and it is better to hear that before the wall comes out than afterwards. You lose wall space, which is where the radiators, the bookshelves and the television used to go. You lose doors, so cooking smells and noise reach the whole floor. And you lose a room that can be shut off, which matters more than people expect once somebody is working from home or a child wants somewhere quiet.
There are answers to all of it. A retained pier or a glazed screen keeps some separation while the light still travels. A good extractor deals with the cooking. Underfloor heating or a tall slim radiator frees the wall up. Islington terraces off Upper Street are deep and narrow, so we usually suggest zoning the space rather than emptying it, and we mark the furniture layout out on the floor before anything is demolished.
- Bi-fold and sliding door openings onto the garden
- Openings formed in stages to keep the home usable
- Kitchen island services routed through the new floor
- Radiator relocation and underfloor heating in the new layout
- Open-plan kitchen-diner conversions
Why Islington Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
For an open-plan conversion in Islington you get the structural work and the fit-out from a single team: engineer-designed steel, building control, floors, lighting and heating, all delivered by GS Renovation with over 30 years of experience on the borough's period homes.
- Cooking smells and extraction planned into an open kitchen
- Heating and radiator positions reworked for the new layout
- The layout planned around how you actually use the ground floor
- Materials priced at options, so you choose the finish
- Straight advice on what is and is not worth spending money on
- One point of contact on the phone, not a call centre