Dormer, hip to gable, rooflight or a full mansard, worked out from what your roof will actually allow rather than what fits a brochure. Steels in, floor built up, staircase in the right place, insulation and fire protection done to building control, then plastered, wired, plumbed and decorated so it hands over as a finished room rather than a shell.
The first thing we measure is the ridge, because a loft without the height for a habitable room is a job nobody should be selling you. You get a straight answer on that at the survey.
Where the stairs land decides whether the room below survives intact. We set the staircase out on the drawing with the bedroom underneath in mind, not as an afterthought.
Steels sized by a structural engineer, floor joists built off them, fire doors and protected escape route, insulation to current standards and building control inspecting as it goes.
Plastered, wired, radiators or underfloor, an en-suite where there is room for one, eaves storage built in and decorated. You get a room you can move into, not a space to finish yourself.
The deciding factor is head height. You want roughly 2.4 metres from the top of the existing ceiling joists to the underside of the ridge to end up with a comfortable room once the floor is built up and the insulation is in. Trussed roofs on newer houses complicate it but rarely rule it out, and a hip to gable or a dormer buys height and floor area. We measure it at the survey and tell you what the loft will honestly give you.
Most London loft conversions go through as permitted development, which covers rear dormers within volume limits and rooflights on the front. You do need planning if the house is in a conservation area, has had its permitted development rights removed, is a flat or a maisonette, or if you want a dormer facing the road. Building regulations approval is always needed, whatever route the planning side takes.
Six to ten weeks for most houses, from scaffold going up to the room being decorated. The roof is opened and made weathertight in the first stage rather than left open, the steels and floor go in next, then first fix, plastering, second fix and decoration. Planning and drawings add four to eight weeks before any of that starts, so the honest total from first phone call is usually three to five months.
Yes, and most clients do. Almost all of the work happens above the existing ceiling and gets accessed off the scaffold, so the disruption inside is limited to the days when the staircase opening is cut and the stairs go in. Those are the messy days, and we sheet the route, protect the floors and clear up at the end of each one.
Usually yes, and it is worth it. The constraints are drainage and head height: the soil stack has to be reachable and a shower needs somewhere with standing height. A pump gets round most drainage problems. We plumb it as part of the same job, so there is no second trade to organise once the room is built.
One firm from the first sketch to the last coat of paint.
ServiceRear, side return and wrap-around extensions built from the footings up: foundations dug and inspected, structure and steels in, roof on and weathertight, then the inside fitted out and joined into the rest of the house so it reads as one room rather than a bolted-on box.
ServiceStrip out, first fix, fit and finish.
ServiceFull rip-out to a finished room: old suite and tiles off, pipework and wiring reworked, walls squared and boarded, tanking where it matters, then tiled, fitted and sealed.
ServiceA downstairs WC under the stairs, an en-suite carved out of a bedroom, a shower room in the loft.
ServiceStud partitions, new openings and closed-up doorways: turning one big room into two, splitting a through lounge, forming a hallway, boxing in a utility or opening a wall up with a beam over it.
ServiceThe wiring and pipework side of a refurbishment, handled by our own team instead of booked in around somebody else's diary.
ServiceBoarding, skimming, patching and rendering.
ServiceWalls and floors, large format porcelain, metro, mosaic and natural stone.
ServiceEngineered wood, laminate, vinyl plank, tiles and carpet made ready.
ServiceFilling, sanding, caulking and cutting in, then two coats properly laid on.
Call, WhatsApp or use the form. Send photos of the room if you can and we will come back with a free, no obligation quote.