Area guide
Painting & decorating in Kensington
Define the building before the rooms. A small house off Holland Street and an apartment in a mansion block present different boundaries between private decoration, the frontage and shared circulation. Your Kensington brief should make those boundaries explicit.
Old Village houses and mansion flats
RBKC’s Kensington appraisal describes the small streets and closes around Holland Street, including eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century houses. It also records red-brick mansion blocks and the importance of retained doors, sash windows and railings. There is no single Kensington frontage to use as a standard specification.
For a house, identify which external surfaces are already painted and which are exposed masonry. For a flat, separate your entrance door and window faces from any communal work. A photograph of a room should be accompanied by the building manager’s instructions where access or shared surfaces are involved.
Inside, list the ceiling, cornice, walls, skirting and doors independently. Explain which finishes remain, and show the junction between old decoration and a repaired area. If the work includes a shared staircase, request a separate sequence so residents’ access and the decoration of individual landings can be discussed together.
Locate the property within the correct conservation area
The council publishes separate appraisals for Kensington, Kensington Square, Kensington Court and other areas. Select the boundary map for the address before using a document to guide a frontage. A neighbouring street’s treatment does not establish the permitted scope for your building.
Listing normally includes interiors as well as exteriors unless specifically excluded. Before disturbing a retained door, decorative plasterwork or an earlier finish in a listed property, describe the proposal to RBKC and establish what advice or consent is needed. Keep photographs of the existing detail with the written specification.
Shared entrances, delivery points and scaffold
Record the route from the entrance to the work, including stair turns, lift restrictions and any space where materials can wait. Agree who can authorise protection in common parts. A private-room quotation should not silently include repainting the shared landing or moving another occupier’s possessions.
RBKC’s loading dispensation does not guarantee a parking space. Plan where a vehicle can remain after unloading, and keep that separate from any highway licence for exterior scaffold. For work over a basement opening, send a photograph showing the full frontage so the access proposal can be assessed rather than inferred from room measurements.
Set the boundaries of the quotation
- The private rooms, shared areas and external faces included.
- Who approves the colours and who manages building access.
- Photographs of retained joinery and decorative plasterwork.
- The full postcode, floor level and any delivery or lift instructions.
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Tell us what needs decorating.
Share the rooms, surface condition and full postcode. Photographs and a short description help us understand the work before discussing a quotation.