Period houses, exteriors and conversions

Match the service to the part of the building that leads

Open Victorian, Edwardian and Arts and Crafts houses when the property is of that character and the brief has to understand the house before a finish is chosen. Merton's North papers record substantial turn-of-century houses with Arts and Crafts influences, including gables, bays and porches. The Hill Road assessment adds Victorian houses on the slope towards the town centre, together with render, painted brick and sash windows, and older buildings later adapted as flats. Wimbledon West is described as high ground to the west of the Village, with the land falling south, and its hillside notes take in sizeable late-nineteenth-century villas in stock brick and stucco, with bays and sashes, as well as houses divided into flats towards the southern edge. Those records are a prompt to look at the address. They are not a specification you can copy from one street to the next. The period-house service is the right first page when joinery profiles, plaster and the question of what stays unpainted matter as much as the colour. Open exteriors, windows, porches and gables when the work is the outside, whichever of these house types it sits on. That service separates render, brick that is already painted, timber windows, porch details and gables. It is the better starting page when the interior is not the reason you are writing. Open interwar houses and period conversions when the building is of that later stock, or when an older house has been split so that a private room and a shared entrance are both in view. South Wimbledon's notes describe Edwardian and interwar terraces with gabled bays and porches and a mixture of external materials. The conversion question is who controls which surface, which is why that service is not a smaller copy of the period-house page.

Sources: Merton: Wimbledon North residential character; Merton: Wimbledon Hill Road character assessment; Merton: South Wimbledon character study; Merton: Wimbledon West setting and topography; Merton: Wimbledon West hillside character

Where one service stops and the next begins

The period-house page stops being the best home for the enquiry when the only undecided work is the elevation and the rooms are not part of this instruction. In that case the exterior page should lead, and the period page remains useful background if the joinery is fine or a consent question has already been raised. The exterior page stops being enough when bare masonry would be coated for the first time, or when a soft sill, an open joint or a recurring stain has no agreed repair. Those items need a decision, and often another trade, before a coating is discussed. South Wimbledon's character notes treat paint on previously unpainted original brick as erosion of character, so that step is not absorbed into a general refresh of timber that is already coated. Being inside a conservation area is not, on its own, a statement that every renewal of an existing finish needs an application. The map, any listing and any Article 4 direction still have to be checked for the address and the works. The exterior page also stops at the boundary of a shared building. A window or a patch of render on a conversion may belong to a larger elevation that one household does not control. That is the point at which the interwar and conversions service should lead, even if the coating itself is ordinary. Inside a period house, a request that is really about school mornings, a working kitchen and the order of occupied rooms belongs with the family-home service in the other group. You can still name the architecture in the same message. The exterior page should not be asked to plan a whole occupied interior, and the period page should not be asked to settle a managing agent's rule for a shared stair.

Sources: Merton: South Wimbledon character study; Merton: conservation areas and Article 4 checks

What each of the three services is asking you to decide

On a period house the decisions are the parts. Which doors, windows, plaster and existing coatings are in the schedule? Which mouldings must keep their edges? Does any exterior change need a consent conversation before paint is chosen? Where a proposal needs planning permission or listed-building consent, including work in a conservation area, that instruction is placed with Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy and agreed separately from the decorating. The decorating page can record the preparation and the finish you have in mind. It does not stand in for that appointment. On an exterior the decisions are the materials and the means of reaching them. Write render, painted brick and timber as separate lines. Note how each window opens, and where a tower or boards would stand. If that position is on the pavement or the carriageway, the contractor who will put the scaffold or hoarding there has to hold Merton's highway licence before it is erected. A skip on the road is a different permission, sought by a registered skip firm. Where a vehicle needs a bay suspended, Merton asks for at least ten full working days' notice, and the notice does not promise an empty space on the day. On an interwar house the decisions are the retained bay, porch, fireplace or doors, set beside any later alteration. On a conversion, add a second list: the outer door, the shared hall, the windows and any render, each marked as private or shared, with the name of the person who may approve a change. A colour chosen for a living room does not answer that second list.

Sources: Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy; Merton: scaffold and hoarding licences; Merton: skip licences; Merton: parking suspensions and waivers

What to send so the three briefs stay distinct

For a period house, send the address, a note of any listing or conservation advice already received, and photographs that show a whole room and then the joinery and any damage. Say which floors can be released and which features are to be left alone. You do not need a finished scheme. If you have tried samples, name the room and whether the sample is for the wall or the woodwork. For an exterior, send a wide photograph of the frontage and closer views of failed coatings, open joints and timber that looks soft. State what is already painted and what is still bare. Add how the street works in practice: where a vehicle can stop, and whether any scaffold would stand on the pavement. Mention a season only as a preference. Weather and the coating's own limits decide the workable days, and this site does not offer a fixed duration for an elevation. For an interwar house or a conversion, send the same kind of surface list, plus a line for every part you may not control. If a managing agent has already set hours, a route through the building, or a colour for outside joinery, include that note and who issued it. Where a household is in residence, say which rooms must stay available. Where the building is empty, say when keys are released and who can approve an extra repair found once preparation starts. One message can carry a period interior and an exterior. Label the paragraphs so the two schedules are not blended into a single request to repaint the whole property.