Refurbishments

Refurbishment is everything from a single tired bathroom to a whole-house refit where every wall comes back to brick. Most of the refurbishments we do in the Weald sit between those extremes: a kitchen, two bathrooms, downstairs reconfiguration, new heating system, redecoration throughout. The work is straightforward but it's also where most builds go wrong, because nobody is properly running the trades.

We coordinate carpentry, brickwork, electrics, plumbing, heating, plastering, tiling and decoration in-house — meaning one project manager, one programme, one snag list. You don't end up explaining to the tiler what the electrician was supposed to leave behind.

A whole-house refit usually runs sixteen to thirty weeks on site, and almost always works better if you can move out for the duration. The programme allows for sequential trades through every room — strip-out, structural, first-fix M&E, plastering, second-fix, decoration — which is impossible to run cleanly with a family living upstairs.

Targeted refurbs — a single kitchen, two bathrooms, redecoration — we run in eight to twelve weeks and almost always with the client still in residence. We dust-screen, use HEPA vacuums, and run a tight start-finish week-by-week so the disruption has a visible end.

We fit kitchens from local makers (Naked Kitchens, deVOL, Pluck, Plain English on the higher end) and from B&Q, Howdens or Wren on the everyday end — the install matters more than the badge. For bespoke joinery — boot-room cabinets, wardrobes, window seats, bookcase walls — we work with two cabinet-makers based in Tenterden and Headcorn who we trust to a millimetre.

Bathrooms run from £8,000 stripped-and-refitted-with-mid-range-suite to £40,000+ for a bespoke en-suite with built-in joinery, underfloor heating, and stone flooring. We've fitted enough to know which ranges go in cleanly and which ones come back to bite us.

Mist coat, two coats of trade emulsion, and a topcoat in eggshell or oil-based satin on woodwork — done properly, with sanding between coats and dust pulled down. We use Farrow & Ball, Little Greene, Edward Bulmer and Paint & Paper Library as standard; we mix to colour-match where the spec calls for something specific.

Skirtings and architraves on period properties are made up on site in moulded softwood to match what was originally there — not bought in MDF. Tiling is set out from the room's sightlines, not from the corner, so the cut tiles land where the eye doesn't catch them.

Single bathroom strip-and-refit, mid-spec suite, retiling: £12,000-£25,000.

Kitchen replacement, like-for-like layout, mid-range fitted units, integrated appliances: £25,000-£55,000.

Ground-floor reconfiguration with new kitchen, knock-throughs, two-pot heating zones, and full redecoration: £80,000-£160,000.

Whole-house refurbishment of a 4-5 bed cottage (re-wire, re-plumb, new boiler, three bathrooms, kitchen, plastering throughout, decoration): £200,000-£450,000.

Site visit, written quote against a typed specification (not against verbal scope — that's where projects go wrong). Provisional sums marked clearly for items that need client choice (tiles, taps, paint colours, kitchen). Start date locked, contract in place, stage-payment schedule agreed.

On site, a weekly walk-through with you so decisions are made in time and never rushed. Snag list compiled in the last week and worked through before handover. Operating manuals, certificates, and a redecoration warranty (twelve months) handed over at completion.