House Renovations in Ampthill
A Georgian town on the greensand ridge, with houses that reward a careful whole house refurbishment.
Five star
Google reviews
£5m
Public liability
10+
Years’ trade experience
Family run
Milton Keynes based
Ampthill’s centre is one of the better preserved Georgian townscapes in Bedfordshire, and the houses along Church Street, Dunstable Street and the roads down towards the park are the ones we are asked to renovate. Brick, lime, long gardens, and interiors that have been reworked by every generation since. The job is to make one good house out of it without losing the reason you bought it.
Around the edges of the town and in Maulden, Clophill and Houghton Conquest, the housing is twentieth century and the renovation is more straightforward: the ground floor opened up, services renewed, a new kitchen and bathrooms, and the whole thing plastered and decorated in one programme. Central Bedfordshire Council is the authority for all of it, and Ampthill is well within our regular area.
Typical works can include
Every project in Ampthill is different. Depending on the agreed scope, works may include:
- Strip out, waste removal and site protection
- Structural alterations, knock throughs and chimney breast removal
- New stud partitions, cloakrooms and internal reconfiguration
- Full or partial rewire and new consumer unit by a qualified electrician
- New pipework, soil and waste runs, heating and radiators
- Insulation upgrades where walls and lofts are open
The full list, and how we run the job, is on the main full house renovations page.
Period houses in the conservation area
Inside an unlisted Georgian house the renovation runs on Building Regulations alone: the steels for the openings, the electrics, the drainage and the insulation are inspected, but there is no planning application for the layout, the kitchen or the bathrooms. It is the external changes that the conservation team look at, and on a listed house the consent covers the inside too, which is common enough in Ampthill that it is worth checking the list before anything is planned.
The materials matter as much as the consents. Lime or breathable plaster on the solid brick, sash windows repaired rather than replaced where they can be, floors kept ventilated and, on the greensand, an eye on where the sand gives way to clay in the garden if an extension is part of the job. General local guidance throughout, confirmed for the particular property with the council or a planning professional.
Excellent work done very professional will definitely be using them again highly recommend.
Full house renovations we have built
Our own photographs, some mid build, because that is where you can see how a job was put together. More on the projects page.
Questions from Ampthill
Do you renovate houses in the Ampthill conservation area?
Yes. Most of the work in a full renovation is internal and needs no planning application on an unlisted house, so the conservation area affects the external changes rather than the job as a whole. On a listed house the consents reach inside and we will say so plainly at the start so the programme allows for them.
Will you keep the original sash windows and fireplaces?
Where they are worth keeping, yes, and in a Georgian house they usually are. Sashes can be overhauled, draughtproofed and reglazed; fireplaces can be opened up and relined. We are honest about what is beyond saving, and we work alongside specialist restorers for anything outside our own trades.
How long will the work take?
It depends on the job, and anyone who gives you a number without seeing the house is guessing. As a rough guide: a bathroom is two to three weeks, a kitchen refit two to four, a single storey rear extension is usually ten to fourteen weeks from breaking ground, and a full house renovation runs three to six months depending on scale.
Weather, Building Control inspections and lead times on windows, doors and kitchens all move those numbers. We build realistic float into the programme rather than promising a date we cannot hold.
Can we stay in the house while you work?
Usually yes, and most of our customers do. On an extension you can live fairly normally right up until we break through into the existing house, which we leave as late as possible for that reason.
On a full renovation it is harder but still workable. We go room by room, keep a working kitchen and bathroom going as long as possible, sheet up properly and clean down at the end of each day.
Other work we do in Ampthill
Full house renovations nearby
Also covering Maulden Clophill Houghton Conquest Millbrook Steppingley Eversholt
Planning full house renovations in Ampthill?
Send a few photographs and tell us what you have in mind. We will come and look, and the written quotation costs nothing.