Case Study
Queen's Gate Refurbishment
Kensington listed flat refurbishment
Location- Kensington
Type- Residential
Service- Design & Build
Value- £250,000
Completed- October 2024
The Queen's Gate Brief
The client wanted a complete refurbishment of a dated two bedroom flat in a listed building. Four things had to be solved:
The Listing
Every change needed consent from the council and the freeholder.
Damp
Moisture coming through the structure, common at lower ground floor level.
Air Conditioning
Cooling for the bedrooms and living room, with building management ruling out an outdoor unit.
Space
A bigger kitchen and second bedroom, a walk in wardrobe, a shower room and a separate guest WC.
Queen's Gate Project Overview
A two bedroom lower ground floor flat on Queen's Gate, in a Grade II listed building, stripped back to brick and rebuilt.
The building set the order of work: approvals, then damp proofing, then services, then finishes, so nothing new went onto a wall that was not dry and signed off.
Scope of Works at Queen's Gate
- 01 Strip Out Back to Brick
- 02 Planning Permission & Licence to Alter
- 03 Specialist Damp Proofing to the Lower Ground Floor
- 04 New Electrical Installation Throughout
- 05 New Plumbing Throughout
- 06 Air Conditioning to Bedrooms & Living Room, No Outdoor Unit
- 07 New Kitchen
- 08 Joinery Throughout by Yasmeen Joinery
- 09 Flooring Tile in wet areas, wood elsewhere
- 10 New Guest WC Off the Living Room
- 11 Kitchen Extended Into the Former Dining Room
- 12 Second Bedroom Enlarged, With the Old Store Turned Into a Walk in Wardrobe
- 13 Bathroom Rebuilt as a Shower Room
- 14 Fire Curtain, as Specified by Building Control
- 15 Painting & Decorating
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Queen's Gate Floor Plan: Before & After
The old kitchen and dining room became one galley kitchen, 4.68m long against 2.54m before. The rest of the dining room went into the second bedroom, and the store behind it became a walk in wardrobe. The bath made way for a walk in shower, and a new guest WC was formed off the living room. All of the layout changes were covered by the Licence to Alter.
Drag the slider to see the original layout against the finished one.
Damp Proofing & Air Conditioning in a Listed Kensington Flat
New finishes over damp fail within a few years, so specialist damp proofing went in before any interior work. It added time, but everything after it sits on a dry base.
A standard split system needs an outdoor unit, which building management would not allow. We specified a system with no external unit, installed entirely inside the flat and routed to respect the listing.
Approvals for Queen's Gate
- Planning Permission
- Works to a Grade II listed building need council consent. Our application showed how the works respected the character of the building, and it was approved before we started.
- Licence to Alter & Building Management
- The freeholder approved the structural and layout changes through the Licence to Alter, which we managed and had granted before work began.
- Building Control
- All works were inspected and signed off by building control. As part of the approval, building control specified a fire curtain, which we installed. The completion certificate was issued at handover.
Queen's Gate Before & After
Living room Drag to compare.
Queen's Gate Photo Gallery
Bespoke Joinery at Queen's Gate
Joinery throughout was designed, made and installed by Yasmeen Joinery from our Park Royal workshop, built to measure for walls that are rarely straight in a period flat.
The Finished Project at Queen's Gate
A dry, fully modernised flat in a listed building, with every approval in place. A kitchen almost twice the length, a bigger second bedroom with a walk in wardrobe, a new shower room, a guest WC, damp dealt with at source and air conditioning year round. Everything behind the finishes is new.
Handed over in October 2024.
“Our flat is in a listed building, and before anything else I was worried about the approvals. YPS handled the planning and the Licence to Alter for us, fixed the damp properly and found a way to give us air conditioning without an outdoor unit. The flat feels completely new and much bigger. We would use them again without hesitation.”
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Refurbishing a Listed or Period Flat?
At Queen's Gate we secured planning and the Licence to Alter and dealt with the damp before a single finish went in. Tell us about your building.
