Renovations in Wallington

Wallington was built as a place for families to settle and the houses reflect it. Edwardian frontages with generous bays and wide halls, then interwar homes filling the streets out towards Beddington Park, most of them with more depth and more garden than their equivalents further into London. Renovations in SM6 tend to be improvement projects rather than rescues: reworking a ground floor that no longer suits how a family lives, adding at the back, converting the roof, and renewing services installed a very long time ago. The stock is generally sound, so the work is about making good houses work better.

Edwardian and Interwar Plans, Reworked

An Edwardian house gives you more to play with than a Victorian terrace does. Frontages are wider, halls are proper rooms rather than corridors, the bay is deeper and the rear rooms are often already generous. The usual brief is to bring the back of the house together into one kitchen and dining space, extend into the garden where the plot allows, and get more daylight into the middle of the plan. The wall between the rear rooms and the rear wall itself are both carrying load, so every opening is designed by the structural engineer we appoint.

The features are worth keeping and it costs nothing to decide that at the start. Tiled hall floors, panelled doors, deep skirtings, picture rails and the original staircase survive in a lot of these houses, and they are what make a property feel like more than a floor plan. We agree at survey stage what is being retained, protect it physically during the work rather than hoping for the best, and match new plaster profiles and joinery to the old where something has to be replaced. Modern insulation, wiring and heating go in behind all of it.

How the Job Actually Runs

A renovation here follows a set order and most of the difficulty comes from ignoring it. We survey and quote, appoint the structural engineer where the scheme needs one, submit the building control application, then work through demolition and structure, roof and external envelope, first fix services, plastering, second fix, kitchen and bathrooms, with decoration last. Inspections are booked as each stage arrives, and nothing structural or below ground is covered up before the inspector has seen it. One named project manager holds all of that together as your single point of contact.

Living through it is planned rather than endured. Most houses here have a driveway or off-street space, so the skip and materials stay off the road and the site stays contained. We phase the work so a bathroom and some kitchen function survive as long as the layout allows, screen the working area against dust, keep the heating running where we can, and leave the house locked and clean each evening. You are told the week before the loud stages, and the programme is updated as it moves rather than at the end.

Where most Wallington projects start: whole-house refurbishment in Wallington, everything we cover across Sutton, renovations in Carshalton and full house renovation cost.