Family homes and flat repaints

Choose by the way the home is occupied

Open the whole-house family repaint when the property is a house and the main constraint is ordinary life. The useful starting point is which room can be spared, not which colour happens to be in fashion. Bedrooms that are slept in, a kitchen that still has to produce breakfast, and a route to the front door decide the order of the work. The service can include walls, ceilings, doors, skirtings and fitted cupboards, with the edges of that list written down so a later conversation can check them. It is aimed at a household that will remain, even if one floor is cleared at a time. Open town-centre flats and lettings when the property is a flat, or when the instruction comes from an owner, a landlord or an agent arranging work around a tenancy. The room schedule still matters, and so do keys, the person who may approve a sample, and any rule the building has already issued. A compact plan changes the colour discussion, because the view from the entrance often takes in more than one space at once. A house that merely has a self-contained annexe is not automatically this second service. If the annexe is still part of one family's week, the family page is the clearer lead, with the annexe named as its own group of rooms rather than as a letting.

Where the family-house service ends

The family page is not the place to settle the architecture of a Victorian, Edwardian or Arts and Crafts house, and it is not the place to specify an elevation. If the enquiry is really about gables, porches, fine glazing bars or a consent question, start with the period-house or exterior service and mention the household in the same note. The family page also ends where a later conversion begins to be a shared building. Painting a private bedroom in a house that has been split is still interior decoration, but the entrance door, the stair and the windows may belong in the interwar and conversions discussion. Say which of those you control before they are written into a decorating schedule. Inside its own subject, the family service stops at repairs that are not decoration. A crack that keeps returning, a stain with no agreed cause, and plumbing or electrical work that is still being designed should be named and given an owner before a final coat is expected to hide them. Moving furniture is part of the planning conversation. It is not an assumption that every piece will leave the house. Say what stays, what can move, and who will empty shelves, cupboards and window boards. A spare room that can be shut for a week is a different problem from a hall that is still the way to school.

Where the flat and lettings service ends

The flat page ends at the front door when the outside of that door, the shared hall or the elevation is controlled by someone else. Include those surfaces only with the authority and the conditions that apply to them. If the flat sits inside an older house and the question is how later partitions meet earlier joinery, read the conversions service as well. The lettings page can still lead when the urgent facts are the key date, the other trades and the handover. The two pages answer different questions about the same building, and a short cross-reference is more useful than forcing one of them to carry both. A vacant flat and an occupied tenancy are both this service, and they are not the same programme. Empty rooms can be ordered around dust, then coatings, then the gap before cleaning or an inventory. Occupied rooms have to leave somewhere to sleep, wash and prepare food. Do not send a timetable written for a void and expect it to fit a home that is still lived in. Building rules can apply to both. Ask the managing agent whether preparation must stay inside Merton's usual hours for noisy construction. Those published limits are weekdays from 8am to 6pm and Saturday mornings until 1pm, and such work is normally not done on Sundays or bank holidays. A particular block may allow a shorter window than the council figure. Ask before any date is treated as agreed.

Sources: Merton: noisy construction work

What to send for a family house, and what to send for a flat

For a family house, send the address and a room list in the order you could release the rooms. Note the breakfast place, the rooms used for calls or homework, and the bedrooms needed each night. Add where the contents of the first room will stand, and whether the kitchen must stay in use while its walls or joinery are in the schedule. If colours are already chosen, give the reference, the sheen and the room. If they are not, describe the floors and the furniture that will remain, because those are what a sample has to sit beside. Photographs of each space, including the hall that joins them, are enough to start. A preferred week is welcome as context. It is not a booking, and sending the note does not reserve painters. For a flat or a letting, send the address, the floor, and whether anyone will be living there during the work. Separate the date keys are available from the date a new occupation is hoped for. Name the owner or agent who can approve the scope and any extra repair found during preparation, and say how to reach that person if they will not be on site. List ceilings, walls and joinery apart, and say whether the insides of cupboards are included. Attach any written building rule you already hold, covering hours, the route in, and whether the windows or the entrance are part of this instruction. If a reply from the managing agent is still outstanding, say so, rather than leaving the point looking as though it had been settled. Once a product, colour and sheen are accepted, write them down for each included surface so a later maintenance visit is not relying on memory.