Renovations in Marylebone

A large share of the renovations we quote for in Marylebone happen inside flats rather than houses. The blocks between Marylebone High Street and Baker Street were built as apartments and remain leasehold, so the first document that matters is not a drawing but your lease. Alongside them sit Georgian townhouses, most long since divided into upper floor flats with their own service arrangements bolted on. Either way the envelope is fixed, the value comes from replanning what sits behind it, and the freeholder has a say in the work before the council does. We work to those conditions rather than around them.

What a licence to alter actually involves

Before a structural or layout change goes ahead in a Marylebone mansion flat, the freeholder or managing agent normally issues a licence to alter. Obtaining one means submitting drawings, a specification, the contractor's insurance details and, where a wall is coming out, a structural engineer's report. We do not produce that report. We appoint a structural engineer, give them access to survey properly, and then build to the design they issue. The lease usually also sets out what cannot happen at all, such as altering a soil stack shared with the flats above or reducing the acoustic performance of a floor. Reading it early saves drawing the same kitchen twice.

Internal walls in these blocks are a mixture. Some are brick and genuinely carrying floor loads from the flats above; others are later stud partitions installed when a flat was reconfigured decades ago. Only opening up tells you which, and the engineer's assessment follows that. Where a beam is needed, its bearings have to land on masonry that continues down through the building rather than on a partition that stops one floor below. Permitted development rights do not apply to flats, so nothing here is exempt on the basis of size. Building control still governs structural work, notifiable electrics and any change to fire separation.

Renovating inside a managed block

Practicalities decide the programme in W1 more than the design does. Most blocks around the High Street set permitted working hours, restrict use of the passenger lift and expect communal stairs and corridors to be sheeted before the first bag of plaster arrives. Deliveries have to land inside a loading window on a controlled street, so materials come in by the day rather than by the pallet. Waste leaves the same way, bagged, often through a hallway that residents are using ten minutes later. None of that is difficult, but it has to be planned, and it is why a flat refurbishment here runs longer than the same rooms in a house.

Noise is the other constant. With occupied homes above, below and to either side, percussive work is concentrated into agreed windows rather than spread across the day, and neighbours are told in advance. Every project gets one named project manager who deals with the managing agent, the porter and the residents, so you are not fielding calls about a lift booking while you are at work. We are fully insured, which the agent will want confirmed in writing before anyone starts, and installations we carry out are covered by a five year guarantee.

Where most Marylebone projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Marylebone, everything we cover across Westminster, renovations in Mayfair, renovations in Pimlico and full house renovation cost.