Painters & Decorators in Chelsea

You will still be living here

That is the thing that makes a Chelsea job different. The houses are lovely and the finishes are demanding, but the constraint that actually governs the work is that somebody has to cook dinner in the middle of it. A full redecoration takes weeks. Nobody moves out for weeks.

So the questions worth asking a decorator here are not really about paint. They are about how the house functions while the work is going on: which rooms come out of use and when, how much of your life ends up under a dust sheet, and what state the place is in at six o'clock each evening.

How we answer them

We take the house in sections rather than opening it all up at once, so you keep a kitchen, a bathroom and somewhere to sit throughout. Working areas are sheeted and sealed off rather than loosely covered. Sanding dust is extracted at source instead of being swept up afterwards, which is the difference between a fine grey film on every surface in the house and none at all.

At the end of each day the area we have been in is cleared, not left mid-job. It sounds like a small thing. In a house you are still living in it is close to the whole thing.

The jobs we get called for in SW3

Most often a full interior redecoration — walls, ceilings, and the joinery that quietly dates a room when it is left behind: skirtings, architraves, panelled doors, cornice. Beyond that, exterior and facade work on the stucco fronts, wallpaper where a room needs more than paint can give it, and sprayed finishes on cabinetry and built-in wardrobes where a brushed finish would look hand-done rather than made.

We also get called for single rooms and single elements. A hallway that has taken ten years of traffic, or a front door that needs stripping back and doing properly. There is no minimum job.

Getting in and out of the property

Chelsea streets are narrow, parking is difficult, and a good share of the housing is in mansion blocks and managed buildings with their own rules about working hours, lifts and loading. None of that is a problem if it is settled beforehand; all of it is a problem on the first morning.

We check the building's requirements before the start date rather than turning up and discovering them. Scaffold, where exterior work needs it, we arrange through contractors we have used for years. Parking suspensions and council licences are arranged by you or your agent — worth starting early, as the lead times run longer than people expect.

Who you are actually letting in

The same faces, for the length of the job. We are a small team rather than a rota of subcontractors, which is why we can promise the standard is consistent from the first room to the last. Full public liability cover is in place on every job, and nothing gets priced without seeing the property first.

Nearby

We work across the surrounding postcodes too — Kensington, Notting Hill and Fulham, plus Knightsbridge, Putney, Wandsworth and Wimbledon. If your postcode is not on that list, ask; it is usually still a yes.