Case study — High-end residential
We delivered the decoration package on the full refurbishment of 47 Chester Square for main contractor Knowles, covering every floor of the house.
Client
Knowles
Location
Belgravia, London
Sector
High-end
Scope
Whole house
We were appointed by Knowles to carry out the decoration package on the full refurbishment of 47 Chester Square. The works covered every floor of the house, from the lower ground to the top storey, including hand-finished joinery, decorative plasterwork and specialist finishes.
A whole-house refurbishment in Belgravia is decorated to a standard closer to furniture than to building work. Surfaces are inspected in raking light, joinery is hand-finished where a sprayed face would read wrong, and the specification runs to specialist finishes alongside conventional decoration. The tolerance for a defect is effectively nil, and the programme has to allow for that.
Reception rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms across six floors
Staircase, hallways and circulation
Hand-finished joinery, panelling and fitted furniture
Specialist finishes to selected rooms
Sample panels and colour approval in situ
Walls and ceilings were finished in flat, low-sheen emulsions that hold a soft face under both daylight and lamplight, with water-based eggshell to joinery and panelling built up in thin coats over fully filled and sanded substrates. Fitted furniture and doors were hand-finished where the sheen had to match adjacent joinery, and decorative plasterwork was cut in by hand to keep the profiles crisp.
On a house at this level the finish is inspected at arm's length, in daylight, by an interior designer who does this for a living.
Most of the labour went into preparation — filling, sanding and inspecting in raking light before any finish coat. On surfaces read at this distance, nothing else recovers a poor substrate.
Colours, sheens and specialist finishes were signed off from sample panels viewed in the room they belonged to, under its own light, and approved by the design team before the work proceeded.
No lay-down space, a single stair for every trade and residential neighbours on both sides. Materials were called off in small loads and the staircase was protected and kept clear throughout.
New stone, timber floors, glazing and fitted furniture were installed ahead of us, so protection and a disciplined snagging routine carried as much weight as the decoration itself.
On private residential work, what we do not publish matters as much as what we deliver. We work to the client's confidentiality requirements and agree in advance what can be photographed and what can be said.
What contractors, designers and private clients ask us before appointing a decorator on a whole-house refurbishment.
On a six-floor Belgravia house at this standard, allow around twenty to twenty-five weeks for the decoration package. The variable is rarely application; it is the preparation the substrates need and how much of the programme ahead of us runs late. Chester Square ran to twenty-four weeks.
Routinely. Colours, sheens and specialist finishes are taken from the designer's schedule, made up as sample panels in the rooms they belong to and approved by the design team before we proceed. Where a specified finish will not perform on a given substrate we say so before it is applied, not after.
Yes. Alongside conventional decoration we deliver specialist finishes to selected rooms, hand-finished panelling and fitted furniture, and metalwork finished by hand rather than sprayed where the sheen has to match adjacent joinery.
On a refurbishment at this level most of the expensive finishes are installed before we start. Everything is sheeted and boarded, protection is checked daily as other trades move through, and we run a disciplined snagging and making-good routine at handover rather than leaving it to the main contractor.
Yes. On private residential work we agree in advance what may be named, photographed or published, and we are happy to be referenced as a private residence rather than by address. Nothing goes on this site without the client's agreement.
See the sectors we work in →Talk to the team that decorated 47 Chester Square.
GSD London Ltd
Company Number: 10543768
VAT Number: 261280131
Head Office
40 Bowling Green Lane,
EC1R0NE, United Kingdom
