Refurbishment & building in Fulham.

We know
Fulham.

Fulham is built on the classic two and three-storey Victorian terrace, the 'Fulham house', and it is one of the strongest renovation markets in west London.

It is a young professional and family area with high renovation demand, so side-returns, lofts and whole-house work are constant. Some streets fall within conservation areas, which we plan around.

In SW6 we are most often asked for side-return kitchen extensions, loft conversions and full house refurbishments.

Fulham has a large rented sector, and we carry out the certificates that go with it. See our pages for an EICR in Fulham and a gas safety certificate (CP12) in Fulham. Both can be done in the same visit, with an EPC or a fire alarm check added if the property needs one.

The Fulham house is London stock brick with lime mortar, and after 120 years the front elevations, the bay parapets and the garden walls are where it shows. Weathered pointing, cracked render on the bays, and boundary walls leaning over the pavement come up on most surveys here. Our repointing, render repair and garden wall repair teams work across SW6.

Two storeys
becoming three.

Fulham is built almost entirely of late Victorian terraced houses: long streets of two-storey homes with bay windows and back additions, from Parsons Green and Munster Village to the streets around Fulham Broadway and down to the river. Because the houses are so alike, so are the projects. Most Fulham owners want more space, and the house tells you where it can come from.

Between Parsons Green, the streets off the New King's Road and the roads down towards the river, Fulham's houses are similar but not identical. Some have deeper back additions, some have basements, and some have already had one loft or extension. We look at what has been done before, because an older extension or loft often needs bringing up to standard as part of the new work.

L-shaped dormer lofts

On a Fulham terrace a rear and back-addition dormer can add a bedroom and bathroom on a new floor. Structure, stairs, fire safety and the party walls all need designing in.

Side-return kitchens

Infilling the side return with a glazed or flat roof creates the open kitchen most buyers expect. Steel beams carry the old rear walls and drainage often needs rerouting.

Basements

Some Fulham houses have been extended downwards. Basements are major structural projects with their own planning policies, and we will tell you plainly whether one is realistic for your house.

Repairs, finishes
and certificates.

Alongside lofts and extensions, Fulham owners ask us for kitchens, bathrooms, steel beams for knock-throughs, repointing of tired front elevations, and EICRs and gas safety records for rented homes.

Hammersmith and Fulham
and its conservation areas.

Fulham is in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has many conservation areas across SW6, including the Peterborough Estate. In some of them permitted development rights for lofts and front alterations are removed, so a planning application is needed. Most lofts and extensions on terraced streets also need party wall notices to both neighbours. We check your street before quoting.

What the surveyor
usually finds.

Fulham houses are now well over a century old, and the same issues come up in survey reports again and again: tired pointing on front bays, failed lintels over windows, old timber at the back additions, original wiring and lead or galvanised water pipes. If you are buying, we can inspect and give you an estimate to use in your negotiations, then a fixed quotation if you go ahead.

Front walls and paths

Low front walls, tiled paths and steps take years of knocks. We repair them in matching brick and tile.

Back additions

The narrow back addition is often where damp, cracking and the oldest services are found, and it is usually the part rebuilt or extended.

Kitchens, bathrooms
and floors.

Once the structure is done, the finish is what you live with. We manage the kitchen fit, bathrooms, flooring and decorating as part of the same project, so there is no gap between the builders leaving and the fitters arriving.

Opening up
the ground floor.

Many Fulham owners want the front and back reception rooms joined, or the kitchen opened into the dining room. Removing a wall that carries the floors above needs a steel beam sized by a structural engineer, temporary propping while it goes in, and building control sign-off. Done properly, the job is quick and clean; done badly, it shows in cracks upstairs for years.

Chimney breasts

Removing a chimney breast to gain space also needs support for what is left above, and the neighbour's consent where the breast is shared. See chimney breast removal.

Floors and services

Opening rooms up is a good moment to replace old wiring and heating pipes under the floors before new flooring goes down.

The way we
work in Fulham.

1. What you want from the house

   An extra bedroom, a bigger kitchen or the whole house redone: tell us and send photos.

2. Structure and drainage first

   At the visit we look at the walls, roof and drains that decide how the extension or loft can be built.

3. A fixed written price

   Broken down so you can see the loft, kitchen and finishing costs separately, agreed before starting.

4. One contact, one programme

   Scaffold, steel, roof, first fix, plaster and finishes are booked in sequence and managed to handover.

Questions from
Fulham clients.