Renovations in Catford

Most renovation enquiries we take in Catford come from families who have bought an Edwardian terrace with good bones and a rear layout that stopped making sense fifty years ago. The houses in the streets around Mountsfield Park and down towards Ladywell Fields are wide by London standards, with square bays, decent halls and a scullery arrangement at the back that nobody has needed since. Opening that up, extending behind it and refitting the whole ground floor is the standard SE6 project. GS Renovation covers Catford from across south London rather than from a base here, and quotations are free with no obligation.

Edwardian family terraces and how they open up

The typical Catford ground floor was built as four compartments: front room, rear room, a hall running past both and a narrow kitchen tacked on behind. Turning that into one connected space means dealing with the spine wall, which carries floor joists and often a stack, and with the rear wall, which carries the roof of the back addition. Neither comes out on judgement. We appoint a structural engineer to assess exactly what each wall supports and to design the steel, and our part is the building: propping on spread sole plates, staged demolition, exact bearings and clean reinstatement.

What tends to bite on these houses is the accumulation of earlier work. A previous owner has taken the kitchen wall out with a lintel that never bore properly, a stack has been removed upstairs and left standing on nothing but a hope, or joists have been cut through for a soil pipe. None of that shows on a floorplan. Our survey lifts boards, opens ceilings where we can and photographs what is found, so the engineer designs around the house that exists rather than a drawing of it, and the price you receive reflects the same reality.

Extending at the rear in SE6

A single storey rear extension on a terraced or semi-detached Catford house commonly falls within permitted development at three metres, with a larger depth available through the prior approval route where the council consults your neighbours first. That is the starting point rather than the answer: earlier additions, a designated conservation area or an unusual boundary position can each remove the allowance. We check the planning history for your address and put the enquiry to Lewisham Council rather than reading the limits off a website and hoping they apply to your particular house.

The building side then runs on inspections. Building control wants to see the open trench before concrete, the damp proof course and structure as they go in, the insulation and the drainage, and there is one point that catches people out repeatedly in these streets: the existing soil run and inspection chamber usually sit right where the new floor is going. Where a new structure sits over a public sewer, a build over agreement with the water authority is required and takes time to obtain. We identify that at survey, not at first fix, and we book the inspections rather than working around them.

Where most Catford projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Catford, everything we cover across Lewisham, renovations in Deptford, renovations in New Cross and full house renovation cost.