GS Renovation creates open-plan spaces in Vauxhall's period homes, opening up the Georgian and Regency townhouses and terraces of SE11 into kitchen-diners and connected living areas. With more than 30 years of structural work locally, we handle knock-throughs, broken-plan layouts and Crittall dividers, with an engineer's beam carrying the loads and Lambeth building control signing it off.
Open-plan living in Vauxhall's Georgian terraces
The classic Vauxhall conversion joins two front-to-back reception rooms, or opens the kitchen into the dining room, giving these tall period houses the light and flow they were never built for. The dividing wall is usually load-bearing, so we start with a structural engineer sizing a steel beam to carry the floors above, bearing onto padstones set into the flank walls at each end.
Not everyone wants a single vast room. Broken-plan layouts, with a Crittall-style glazed screen or a part-height wall, suit SE11's period proportions and keep some separation between cooking and sitting. Where the divider is glazed rather than structural we can be lighter-handed, but any wall taking load is still opened with propping and staged demolition under the engineer's design.
Getting it signed off across SE11
A knock-through is notifiable under the Building Regulations, so Lambeth Council's building control inspects the beam and its bearings and issues the completion certificate. This is building control rather than planning: opening up internally needs no planning permission, though a listed Vauxhall house, or exterior changes in a conservation area, can need consent, which we check before starting.
Where the wall being removed is a party wall shared with the neighbouring house, the Party Wall Act applies and you serve notice before work begins. Because these conversions happen in lived-in homes, we prop carefully, dust-sheet and seal the working area, and manage the mess. You get an open, connected space that is engineered, certified and finished, not just knocked through.
- Side-return integration for a wider ground floor
- Open-plan kitchen-diner conversions
- Zoned lighting circuits and dimming for a multi-use room
- Radiator relocation and underfloor heating in the new layout
- Steel beam installation to remove the dividing wall
Trusted Open-Plan Conversions in Vauxhall
GS Renovation gives Vauxhall homeowners one team for the whole open-plan project: engineer's beam design where a shared wall is affected, Lambeth building control sign-off, and clean working in an occupied period home. We understand how SE11's Georgian houses are built, and 30+ years of local structural conversions keeps the result solid and light-filled.
- Rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder
- Building control applications and inspections coordinated for you
- Broken-plan and Crittall-style options priced alongside full open-plan
- Founder-led team with 30+ years of hands-on experience
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- The layout planned around how you actually use the ground floor