Renovation in Kensington and Chelsea

GS Renovation provides the full range of home renovation and building services across Kensington and Chelsea, one of Central London's most sought-after areas. Known for stucco-fronted townhouses, mews homes and red-brick period properties, Kensington and Chelsea covers SW3, SW5, SW7, SW10 and W8 and includes Kensington, Chelsea, Notting Hill, South Kensington, Knightsbridge and Holland Park. With over 30 years of hands-on experience we handle everything from kitchens and bathrooms to structural alterations and extensions, all to building control standard.

Whether you live near the King's Road, Portobello Road and Holland Park or elsewhere in the borough, our local team delivers high-quality workmanship with one point of contact, transparent pricing and full insurance. Choose a service below to learn more about what we offer in Kensington and Chelsea.

Kensington and Chelsea is small, dense and almost entirely designated. Stucco townhouses in Kensington and Notting Hill, Georgian and Victorian houses off the King's Road, mews properties tucked behind the main streets, and mansion flats through SW7 and SW3. Plots are narrow, gardens are short and the elevations are protected, so schemes here tend to work downwards and inwards rather than outwards. Knowing what the existing fabric will take, before anything is opened up, matters more here than almost anywhere.

Designation Rules Most of This Borough

Conservation area cover extends over the great majority of the Royal Borough, and Article 4 directions remove permitted development rights that would apply elsewhere. That affects rear extensions, roof alterations, windows, railings and front boundary treatments. The practical result is that most external changes need consent from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea before any work starts, and buying materials ahead of a decision is a false economy.

Inside, the picture is different. Reordering a lower ground floor, forming a wide opening between front and rear reception rooms, or turning a dark rear return into a proper kitchen are all achievable. Those openings usually mean steel. We appoint a structural engineer to design the beam and its bearings, then build to that design, with needles and props in place until the new support is loaded and packed.

Mews Streets, Basements and Neighbours

Basement and lower ground work is common across Chelsea and Holland Park because there is nowhere else to go. Excavating near a neighbour's foundations triggers the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, as does cutting beam bearings into a shared wall. The duty to serve notice sits with you as the building owner, and the notice periods need to be built into the programme rather than discovered halfway through it.

Access shapes everything else. Mews streets around Knightsbridge and South Kensington are narrow, controlled and often gated, with no room for a skip and limited turning space for a lorry. We size deliveries to what the street can actually take, arrange skip permits or bagged removal in advance, and sequence work so you can keep living in the house while the messiest stages are boxed off and ventilated.

Popular starting points in Kensington and Chelsea: full home renovations in Kensington and Chelsea, House extensions across Kensington and Chelsea, how to vet a London builder and how to plan a renovation.