Painters & decorators in Chelsea.

Chelsea runs from Sloane Square to the Thames and west along the King’s Road into SW10, and almost all of it is protected: the Chelsea, Cheyne, Royal Hospital and Hans Town conservation areas between them cover most of the streets we work on, and much of the freehold sits with the Cadogan and Sloane Stanley estates, whose stewardship shows in the consistency of the terraces. It is the most varied of the areas we serve, and the one that asks for the most judgement.

The properties we work in

Early-Victorian stucco terraces around Markham Square and Wellington Square; the brick and stucco of Paultons Square and Carlyle Square; the red-brick Pont Street Dutch gables of Cadogan Square; the pastel-painted terraces of Bywater Street and Godfrey Street; the artists’ studios of Tite Street and Glebe Place with their double-height north light; the mews behind the King’s Road; and the riverside houses of Cheyne Walk. Each calls for its own specification — a studio’s volume takes a depth of colour that a mews cottage two streets away could not carry.

Conservation areas, estates and the painted façade

Chelsea’s coloured front doors and painted terraces are part of its character, and the conservation-area rules exist to keep that character rather than freeze it. Repainting a façade in its existing colour is usually straightforward; a change of colour on a front elevation, or painting brick that has never been painted, can fall under an Article 4 direction and wants checking with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea before a brush is lifted. We work with that process rather than around it, sample the colour on the building itself, and where the freehold is held by the Cadogan or Sloane Stanley estates we keep external finishes to the conventions the estate expects. Our notes on decorating in a conservation area and on painting stucco façades set out the detail.

Interiors for houses that are lived in

Behind the façades the work is domestic and demanding: family houses where the woodwork must be beautiful and washable at once, lower-ground kitchens and basements opened up beneath the garden, first-floor drawing rooms with tall sashes and original cornicing, and studios where a single wall of colour has to hold a double-height room. We specify room by room — the right sheen for each surface, three coats minimum on woodwork, original plasterwork and joinery recovered rather than replaced — and much of it is done while the household stays put.

Front doors, railings and the street

A Chelsea front door is a small public statement and is painted like one: taken back where the build-up has blurred the mouldings, primed on bare timber, three coats laid off by hand, the brass removed rather than painted around. Railings and balconies are treated for rust before they are finished, not glossed over it. Done in the same programme as the façade, the whole elevation reads as one piece of work.