Shawlands, Glasgow Southside
Home renovations in Shawlands
Renovating a Southside tenement flat has one complication no other project type has: you are working inside a building you share with other people, through a close everybody uses, on a property where several of the systems are common rather than yours.
What is yours and what is the building's
Inside your front door is yours. The close, the stair, the roof, the gutters and often the back court are common, and the soil stack serving your bathroom generally is too. That matters as soon as a renovation wants to alter anything connected to the stack, because that can require agreement from the other owners rather than just your say-so.
Keeping the neighbours on side
A full flat renovation is eight weeks of noise for everybody in the close. We give notice, keep to sensible hours, sheet the stair, clear the landing at the end of every day and take waste away rather than filling the back court. None of that is complicated and all of it is why we get asked back to other flats in the same building.
What is worth keeping
Cornice, ceiling roses, panelled doors, window shutters and deep skirtings are the reasons people buy these flats, and they are far cheaper to repair than to reinstate. We would always plan a renovation around retaining them. Where something has genuinely gone, matching profiles can usually be sourced or run.
Where the budget goes
In a tenement, more of it goes into things you cannot see than owners expect: rewiring, replumbing, repairing lath and plaster, levelling floors and improving sound insulation. That is not a reason to avoid the work, but a realistic budget for a tenement flat has a bigger proportion below the surface than the same size of modern property.