Case study — High-end residential
We delivered the decoration package at Holland Park Villas, the prime residential development on Campden Hill in Holland Park, for main contractor Piperhill — across private apartments and the development's communal areas.
Client
Piperhill
Location
Holland Park, London
Sector
High-end
Scope
Apartments and communal
We were appointed by Piperhill to carry out the decoration package at Holland Park Villas. The works covered private apartments together with the development's communal areas — entrance, lobbies, lift cores, corridors and stairs.
A prime residential development sets two different standards in one contract. Inside the apartments the finish is inspected at arm's length by the purchaser and their designer; in the communal areas the same finish has to survive removals, trolleys and daily traffic for years. Both were specified and sequenced accordingly, with the communal areas kept usable while work continued around them.
Private apartments — walls, ceilings and joinery
Entrance, lobbies and lift cores
Communal corridors and stairs
Hand-finished joinery and fitted furniture
Snagging and handover to purchasers
Apartment walls and ceilings were finished in flat, low-sheen emulsions with water-based eggshell to joinery, built up in thin coats over fully filled and sanded substrates. Communal areas took harder-wearing scrubbable systems able to take contact traffic and repeated cleaning without patching up badly, with metalwork and doors finished to match the apartment joinery.
Two standards in one contract: a finish the purchaser inspects at arm's length, and a finish that has to last in a corridor.
Most of the labour went into preparation — filling, sanding and inspecting in raking light before any finish coat. In an apartment sold on its finish, nothing else recovers a poor substrate.
Lobbies, lifts and stairs are the routes everyone uses, including other trades. They were worked in sections, protected and handed back clean so access was never lost.
Units were decorated, snagged and released individually rather than as one block, so completed apartments could be inspected and handed over while work continued elsewhere.
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 a development the decoration is what the purchaser sees first and lists first. Each unit was walked, snagged and closed out before handover, with our own operatives returning rather than a separate finishing gang.
What developers and main contractors ask us before appointing a decoration subcontractor on a residential development.
Yes, and it is usually more efficient than splitting them. The two need different specifications — apartments are judged at arm's length by the purchaser, communal areas have to survive years of traffic — but one subcontractor across both means a consistent finish where a corridor meets a front door.
Units are decorated, walked, snagged and closed out individually rather than as one block, so completed apartments can be released while work continues elsewhere. Snags are closed by our own operatives returning to the unit, not handed to a separate finishing gang who were never there for the original coat.
Scrubbable, hard-wearing systems that take contact traffic, removals and repeated cleaning without patching up badly, with doors and metalwork finished to match the apartment joinery. A lobby decorated in an apartment-grade emulsion looks tired within a year of handover.
Yes. Lobbies, lifts and stairs are the only routes in and out, so they are worked in sections with clear access maintained throughout, protected against removals traffic and handed back clean at the end of each day.
We are CHAS and SSIP accredited with a 100 per cent RIDDOR-free record across our sites, and work to the standards main contractors expect on prime residential developments. Policies and certificates are available for your prequalification pack.
See the sectors we work in →Talk to the team that decorated Holland Park Villas.
GSD London Ltd
Company Number: 10543768
VAT Number: 261280131
Head Office
40 Bowling Green Lane,
EC1R0NE, United Kingdom
