House Renovations in Bedford
The town with the most Victorian and Edwardian houses we work on, and the full renovations that go with them.
Bedford is where we do more period renovations than anywhere else. The Victorian terraces around Castle Road, Queens Park and Black Tom, and the big Edwardian villas along De Parys Avenue and Kimbolton Road, are exactly the houses a full refurbishment suits: solid, generous, and mostly untouched structurally for a century. Strip out, reconfigure, open the back to the garden, put the bathrooms where they belong, renew every service, replaster and decorate throughout.
The interwar semis at Putnoe and Goldington and the postwar estates at Brickhill and Kempston renovate more simply, with the gains in the layout and the finish rather than the fabric. Bedford Borough Council is the authority, separate from both Milton Keynes and Central Bedfordshire, and Bedford is thirty minutes from our base, which for a job lasting months is no distance at all.
The Edwardian villas and what they hide
Open up a De Parys Avenue villa and you find good news and bad. The good: high ceilings, solid walls, decent joists, original joinery and plasterwork worth keeping. The bad: lath and plaster ceilings that come down rather than get patched, timber lintels that have sagged over the bays, chimney breasts removed decades ago without support, and a rear addition never built to the standard of the front. All of it is normal for the age, and all of it is easier priced in early, which is why we open up before the programme is fixed.
The reconfiguration is structural work with steels on padstones, an engineer’s design and Bedford’s building control inspecting at each stage. Breathable plaster goes back on the solid walls. Outside, the Oxford Clay and the mature trees mean any extension needs deep foundations, and near the river the flood maps come into it. Parts of the town, including the Castle Road area, are conservation areas, which affects external changes. General local guidance, confirmed on the first visit.
Five star
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£5m
Public liability
10+
Years’ trade experience
Family run
Milton Keynes based
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.
Typical works can include
Every project in Bedford 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.
Really helpful, efficient and accommodating. Would recommend if you need anything doing.
Questions from Bedford
Do you take on full renovations in Bedford from Milton Keynes?
Yes, and they are among our favourite jobs. Bedford is thirty minutes away, the team is on site all day for weeks at a time, and the period housing suits the kind of careful whole house work we do. The distance has no real effect on the price or the programme.
Can a Bedford terrace be opened up into one ground floor room?
Usually, yes. The walls between the front room, the back room and the kitchen addition are load bearing, so each opening gets a steel designed by the engineer and inspected by building control, and where the flue is affected the chimney is supported properly. It is the single biggest change you can make to a Victorian terrace and it is routine work for us.
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 Bedford
Full house renovations nearby
Also covering Kempston Biddenham Bromham Clapham Elstow Wootton Wilstead Cardington Great Barford Great Denham Wixams
Planning full house renovations in Bedford?
Send a few photographs and tell us what you have in mind. We will come and look, and the written quotation costs nothing.