Whole house refurbishment
A probate sale taken back to brick and joist and rebuilt to a modern specification, with the original detail kept rather than stripped out.
- Property
- Edwardian terrace
- On site
- 18 weeks
- Completed
- October 2025
- Value band
- £95,000 to £120,000
The house had not been touched since the 1970s. Rubber-sheathed wiring, a back boiler, damp along the flank wall and a rear addition roof that had been patched rather than replaced. The owners wanted a modern house that still felt like an Edwardian one, which is a harder brief than it sounds.
Order of work
Roof, gutters and the flank wall first. There is no point plastering under a leak. The damp turned out to be a failed parapet gutter and a raised external ground level rather than anything needing injection, which saved the owners a five figure sum and a great deal of unnecessary chemical.
Services
Full rewire to the current wiring regulations, replumb, and a heating system sized on a room-by-room heat loss calculation, with pipework and emitters specified so a heat pump can be dropped in later without lifting the floors again.
Breathability
Solid brick walls, no damp proof course, originally finished in lime. We replastered the external walls in lime and finished in a mineral paint so the wall can dry inwards the way it was built to. Internal partitions were skimmed conventionally.
What we kept
Original pine floorboards lifted, cleaned, relaid and finished. Cornice repaired by a fibrous plasterer where the ceiling had been cut for the old wiring. Skirting and architrave run to match the surviving profile in the front bedroom rather than bought off a merchant shelf.
Eighteen weeks, phased so the owners moved back in at week fourteen with a working kitchen and bathroom while decoration finished around them.
Other houses we have worked on
Tell us what you are trying to do with the house.
We will come out, measure up and tell you honestly whether it works. The site visit and the written quotation are free, and there is no obligation attached to either.