Boarding, skimming, patching and rendering. Old lath and blown plaster off, walls dubbed out and skimmed flat, ceilings overboarded where there is no saving them, beads and reveals crisp, and the whole lot left dust-swept and ready for paint. The finish under the paint is what decides whether a decorated room looks expensive or ordinary.
Hollow plaster gets hacked off back to sound brick rather than skimmed over. Skimming over a blown wall buys eighteen months and cracks in exactly the same places.
Old lath and plaster ceilings overboarded or taken down and reboarded, joists checked and packed, so the ceiling reads flat under a light rather than showing every joist line.
Angle beads on every external corner, window reveals square, and the line where a new wall meets an old one worked properly so it does not crack out along the join.
Splashes off the floors, waste out, and the walls left in a condition a decorator can mist coat straight away instead of spending two days filling.
If the existing plaster is sound, yes, and a skim over is quicker and cheaper. We check by tapping the wall through: anything hollow is blown and has to come off, because a skim only bonds to what is behind it. Where about a third or more of a wall is blown it is usually better value to take the lot off and replaster than to patch, and we tell you which one your wall is rather than doing the quick version and hoping.
Fresh plaster needs to dry out, not just feel dry. In a normal room with reasonable ventilation that is about five to seven days for a skim in summer, up to two weeks in winter or on a full replaster. It goes from dark patches to a uniform pale pink when it is ready. Painting too early traps moisture and the paint peels, so it is worth the wait, and a mist coat first is not optional.
Dust from the prep and splashes from the skim, so it is one of the messier trades. Floors get sheeted, doorways get taped, furniture is moved out or covered, and waste plaster goes at the end of each day rather than sitting in bags on the landing. Rooms come back to you swept, not just abandoned once the walls are done.
Yes, and it is most of what plastering on a refurbishment is: making good after a chase for cables, a removed radiator, a new opening or a closed-up doorway. The trick is feathering the patch out far enough that it does not show up as a flat rectangle under a coat of emulsion, and that is worth getting right on a wall you are about to paint.
Yes, patch repairs and full elevations, sand and cement or a through-coloured render system. External work depends on the weather and on scaffold or tower access, so it gets programmed with that in mind rather than promised for a fixed week in February. Blown render on a house is worth dealing with before it lets water into the wall behind it.
One firm from the first sketch to the last coat of paint.
ServiceDormer, hip to gable, rooflight or a full mansard, worked out from what your roof will actually allow rather than what fits a brochure.
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.
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.
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