West London is built of Victorian and Edwardian houses, and they reward being renovated properly. Convert Extend specialises in this stock: opening up the ground floor, restoring cornicing and fireplaces, dealing honestly with damp and old wiring, and bringing a period house up to modern standard without stripping out its character.
Scope scales with the project, but these areas are the spine of any victorian renovations job with Convert Extend.
Removing chimney breasts and the wall between the two reception rooms, with proper steels and gallows brackets, to give a Victorian terrace the through-lounge or open ground floor it was never built with.
Cornicing, ceiling roses, picture rails, sash windows and original fireplaces repaired or sympathetically reinstated, so the modern work sits comfortably with what is worth keeping.
The unglamorous but essential side: tackling rising and penetrating damp at the cause, treating rot, and replastering with breathable finishes that suit a solid-wall house.
Full rewires, new consumer units, fresh plumbing and modern heating run through a period house with the cabling and pipework hidden, not surface-clipped across the original mouldings.
Yes, this is core work for us. Removing the reception wall and chimney breasts needs correctly sized steel and building control sign-off, and we detail it so the period features that remain still read properly.
Where they are worth keeping, yes. Cornicing, fireplaces, sash windows and floorboards can usually be repaired and restored. We will be honest about what is salvageable and what is past saving.
By finding the cause rather than masking it. Solid-wall Victorian houses need breathable repairs, not a tanked-up cover-up. We diagnose the source first, then fix it and replaster appropriately.
Often, yes. If the wiring or plumbing is decades old it is usually false economy to work around it. We run new services through the house cleanly as part of a renovation so it is done once and done right.
A whole-house renovation is usually best done with the house empty, since the work touches every room. We will set out a realistic programme and tell you plainly whether living in is practical for your scope.
Based in Ealing with a second base in Buckinghamshire, we cover West London and the surrounding area as a matter of course.
A quick chat with Steve is usually enough to tell whether your victorian renovations is straightforward or needs a proper look. No detail is too small to start with.