Renovations in Paddington

Paddington's large stucco terraces were carved into flats decades ago, and that decision still shapes nearly every renovation we carry out in W2. Grand rooms with tall ceilings became one bedroom flats with a kitchen in an alcove and a bathroom over what used to be a landing. Soil stacks were run wherever they could be run. Nothing about the resulting layout was designed; it accumulated. Between the station, Paddington Basin and the streets running up towards Little Venice and Hyde Park, most of our work is putting a coherent plan back into a building that lost one.

The legacy of subdivision

When a townhouse was split, the walls that arrived with the split are not always where a structural engineer would have put them, and they are not always non structural either. Later owners have then taken some of them out with no design at all. Opening up in a converted Paddington flat regularly reveals a partition doing work it was never meant to do, or a beam bearing onto something that stops one floor down. So we appoint a structural engineer before quoting any layout change, and we treat drawings from a previous conversion as a starting point rather than a record.

Services follow the same pattern. Waste from a flat often shares a stack with two or three others, so moving a kitchen or a bathroom means checking falls and connections rather than assuming there is capacity. Original floors carry a century of notching. Where a bathroom is being relocated, the joists and the drainage route get resolved before anything is ordered, because discovering that a soil connection cannot be reached is the single most common cause of a stalled flat renovation. Better found at survey than at first fix. It is a survey question, not a design one.

Leases, consent and the working day in W2

Most flats here are leasehold, so the freeholder's written consent comes before any structural or layout change, and the lease may also govern floor coverings, working hours and use of the communal stair. Permitted development rights do not apply to flats at all. Separately, the building itself may be listed or the street may sit within a conservation area, and the designation for the address needs confirming with Westminster City Council rather than guessed at. We build to consent that has been granted and coordinate the building control application and inspections.

Working close to a main line terminus brings its own logistics. Kerbside space is controlled, loading windows are short, and traffic around the station makes a fixed delivery slot valuable. We stage materials, keep waste bagged where a skip permit is impractical, and protect communal areas that residents are using throughout the day. One named project manager handles the managing agent and the neighbours, the company is fully insured, and installations we carry out come with a five year guarantee. Deliveries are booked to the hour and neighbours are told which days will be noisy.

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