House renovations in London are very popular. It’s difficult to walk down a residential road and not spot one property that has a skip outside, or scaffolding covering the roof. These Victorian and Edwardian houses were built a long time ago, and they do require modernisation at some stage. The demand for extensions is also incredibly high. Families require more space and they are looking for ways to achieve it. The combination of those factors makes the demand for home extensions and home renovations in London very high. 

At Home Tales, we specialise in just that: home improvements, renovations and extensions in properties across London. Our specialist team can help you maximise the space you have already, and also look into options to extend if that’s a route you want to go down. Most of the projects we work on have an extension involved, but lots of them are also simple refurbishments. This can include chimney removals, wall removals, and simply reconfiguring the rooms functions and storage solutions to create an efficient use of space. 

We thought we would talk you through our design process to give you some context of what to expect if you use our design services. 

Measured Survey

We offer unlimited amendments within our design package. This means you have as long as you want, and as many modifications to your floorplans as you need. If you proceed with our design package, the first thing we do is book in your measured survey. This is a meeting at your property with your assigned architectural designer. They will spend an hour or so measuring your property. This gives them all of the information they need to be able to draw up your floorplans. Once they have measured up, they will take the opportunity to sit down with you and talk about design options. This can last anywhere from 10 minutes to a couple of hours, we adapt to your schedule and requirements. Some of our clients are very busy, and they want our guidance on designs. In this case we can simply go away and come up with some proposals. Most of our clients have lots of ideas, and they’ve been collecting Instagram shots and Pinterest images for months. This is a great time to share your ideas with us, and we can advise on what we feel is feasible from both a planning permission and budget perspective. Once we have a good idea of what you want to achieve, we can go away and come up with some proposals for you. Typically, we send 2 or 3 design proposals in the first instance. You can then develop the designs from there with your architectural designer. 

Planning Permission 

We offer advice during the measured survey and design development stages. This means you end up with a design that has a good chance of gaining planning permission. Once you are happy with your final design, we will begin to prepare your planning set. This is a set of drawings that includes all of the drawings required by your local council. This includes a site plan, existing and proposed floorplans and roof plans, elevations, and in some cases, sectional details. Once we have this pack, we prepare your planning application. There are lots of different types of application, so we chose the one best for your proposal and fill in all of the details. In some cases, we will submit a Design & Access statement alongside your application. This is a detailed document that explains more about the proposal and how it will impact the surrounding area and host property. Once we have all of the relevant documentation prepared, we submit the application. After submission we will wait for validation. This generally happens within 2 weeks, but it can vary depending on how busy your local council is. This is your council saying they have briefly reviewed the submission and they have everything they require to make a decision. It will be assigned to a case officer, and they will confirm the application is valid. They also give us a determination date too, which is typically 8 weeks from the date of submission. In most cases, your case officer will want to conduct a quick site visit as your determination date approaches. This is a quick 5-minute visit, and they generally just have a look around and take some pictures for their files. If they are really busy, they might ask us to send them some pictures instead. We always take pictures at the measured survey so we will have the necessary documents to provide if this is the case. We check in with your case officer at various stages to ensure the application is on track for a decision within the determination that was given. Councils are under no contractual obligation to meet their deadlines, so we want to avoid any unnecessary delays.

Structural Drawings 

Once planning is approved, we begin your structural calculations and building regulation drawings. When you appoint a building control officer, the first thing they will ask for are your structural calculations and building regulation drawings. These are the detailed drawings which show all of the steel specification and important details within your floorplans. They are also what your appointed contractor will use to build your scheme. The structural calculations are a hefty document, which shows all of the steel specification, load analysis, beam connections and much more within. 

If you have any questions about our design process, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team today. We offer all of these as standalone services, or you can bundle them into one and do them all together. Call us on 0207 043 2378 or email us at hello@hometales.co.uk.