House 38

Private buyers and small investors

We take a brief and go and find the property. You tell us what you are looking for — area, budget, size, what it needs to do for you — and we come back with a shortlist worth viewing, having already discounted the ones that look right on paper and are not. It does not have to be a development project; plenty of clients simply want help finding the right house.

Where a property does need work, we help you decide whether it is worth buying. That means looking past the estate agent's particulars at what the building will actually cost to bring up to standard, what can realistically be done to it, and what it should be worth once the work is finished.

Because we develop and build ourselves, our view of a site is a practical one. We can tell you where the money will go, which walls can move and which cannot, and where the planning risk sits — before you are committed rather than after.

Every client's position is different, so we keep the arrangement simple and scaled to the job. Some want a second opinion on a single purchase; others want us alongside them across several.

From first drawing to final snag

We take on new builds, full refurbishments and the kind of reconfiguration that changes how a house works rather than just how it looks — moving services, opening up ground floors, adding storeys or basements where the structure and the planning allow.

Work starts with what is feasible. We establish early what the planning position is, what the building can take structurally, and what the realistic budget looks like, so the design is grounded before anyone gets attached to it.

From there we run the build: appointing and coordinating trades, holding the programme, and keeping you informed at the points where decisions are actually needed rather than at every turn.

Rooms that work, not just photograph well

We start with how the space is used — where the light falls, where people come in and put things down, how a kitchen is cooked in rather than admired. Layout decisions come before finishes, because no amount of good material rescues a room that is laid out badly.

From there we handle joinery, lighting design, materials and furnishing as one package. Getting the lighting and the wiring settled while walls are still open saves the compromises that appear when interiors are treated as a final coat of paint.

You can bring us in for a single room or a whole house, and we are happy to work to a defined budget rather than an open one.

One person answerable for the whole job

Most residential projects go wrong in the gaps between trades — the electrician who came before the plasterer knew where the sockets were going, the joinery ordered against a drawing that changed. Project management is the work of closing those gaps.

We appoint and coordinate the consultants and contractors, keep the programme and the cost plan current, run site meetings, and chase the detail that would otherwise land on you. Where things slip, you hear it from us early rather than at handover.

We can manage a project we designed, or take over one already underway with an architect and builder you have chosen yourself.

The whole thing, start to finish

Taken together, the four services become a single process: we look at the property before you buy it, work out what it can become, design it, build it and hand it back finished.

The advantage is continuity. The person who assessed the building is still involved when the joinery is being fitted, so decisions made early are not lost or reinterpreted three trades later. It also means one budget, one programme and one number to ring.

Not everyone needs all of it, and there is no obligation to take the full package. Most clients start with one service and add others as the project takes shape.