Restoring a Georgian townhouse in Clifton
Fourteen sash windows overhauled, lime plaster repaired on four floors, and the drawing room cornice recast from a surviving section.
Area
Clifton
Time on site
7 months
Cost
£238,000
Finished
2024
What we did
House
Grade II listed townhouse, 1790s
Service
Period restoration
Site lead
Tom Avery
Listed building consent, prepared with a heritage consultant
Fourteen sash windows overhauled in our workshop
Lime plaster repairs on four floors
Drawing room cornice recast from an original section
Original floorboards repaired and refinished
Rewired with surface runs kept out of the principal rooms
The house had been divided into flats in the 1970s and turned back into one house in the 1990s, with a lot of gypsum plaster and cement render that was keeping the walls damp. The new owners wanted it repaired, not modernised.
We stripped the gypsum back to the brick on the damp walls and replastered in lime. About a third of the drawing room cornice had been lost; our plasterer took a mould from a surviving section and ran the missing lengths in place. Tom and his team overhauled all fourteen sashes in two batches, so no room was boarded up for more than three nights.
The windows open with one finger now. Renovel aren’t cheap, and they were clear about that from the start.
Helen W., Clifton
Kitchens
Redland
2026
Kitchen refit in a Redland semi
A dark kitchen with a smoked oak island, built after taking out the wall between the old kitchen and the back reception room.
Time on site
7 weeks
Cost
£52,400
Extensions
Bishopston
2025
Side-return extension in a Bishopston terrace
A 19 m² side-return extension with a glass roof, which turned a galley kitchen into a kitchen with room for a dining table.
Time on site
17 weeks
Cost
£118,000