Rooms, common parts and working interiors.

Choosing between a private flat, a shared hall and a workplace

The service pages are divided by the way a building is used, because that decides the brief. Mansion-flat interiors are for private rooms: corridors, reception rooms, joinery and the floors that stay in place while people live there or return to a pied-à-terre. Communal halls, stairs and lift lobbies are for the shared route, instructed by a managing agent, a freeholder or a residents’ management company, with flat doors and fire-door limits kept distinct from the wall colours. Rental flats and tenancy changes deal with the gap between occupiers, when a room list, keys and a handover sequence have to be agreed with an owner or a letting agent. Office and hotel repainting is for floors that keep operating, where phases, protection of equipment or guest rooms, and any evening work need to be set out. Exteriors, doors and joinery cover the outside faces, the weather and the question of which materials should remain unpainted. Colour, finish and wallcoverings is the page for choosing sheen, primer and pattern once the rooms themselves are known. Start with the page that matches the people who must approve the work, then add another if the brief crosses a boundary.

Sources: Government fire-door guidance for responsible persons

Preparation and access change with the people using the space

Every service on this list depends on preparation, and the preparation is not interchangeable. In a private flat the issues are plaster, joinery, dust and a path through rooms that may stay occupied. In a common stair the same subjects are shaped by residents walking through, by retained tile and handrails, and by the building’s rules on lifts and notices. Between tenancies the empty rooms show marks and repairs that a furnished viewing hid, and the following appointments for cleaning and inventory depend on coats being ready for use. In an office or hotel the constraint is often ventilation, a reopening time and the need to protect desks or guest circulation. Outside, weather, suction and access equipment govern the order of coats, and consent questions sit beside the scaffolding. Read the service page that fits the commission for the detail. What you send can then include the surfaces, the condition, who may approve a change, and how the space will be reached. A quotation written from that information can show inclusions and exclusions clearly. Choosing a page is a way of organising the enquiry, so the proposal talks about the right rooms and the right constraints.

How to read the service pages before you send an enquiry

Each service page sets out decisions that belong in a first message. Use the headings as a checklist rather than as a specification for your building. Note which surfaces you want included, which must stay as they are, and any permission you have already gathered or still need. If the property is in a conservation area or is listed, the exterior and colour pages point you to the checks, and the neighbourhood pages add the local building types. Those notes are context. They do not replace the council’s map or a managing agent’s instruction. Say who will be on site, or who holds keys if you will not. Mention other trades so decoration is not programmed across unfinished plaster or missing joinery. For a shared building, name the entrances and floors in the same words the manager uses. For a workplace, name what must remain open. The contact form is the place to send that account. A telephone conversation can cover the same ground. Either way, the aim is a written quotation that you can compare with the brief: preparation, finish, access and the items left out. That comparison is the point of reading the page.

Sources: Westminster: conservation areas and address map

Three groups for three kinds of instruction

Use the groups when the full service list is more than you need for a first enquiry. Private flats is for rooms behind a flat door, whether someone is living there or the flat is between occupiers. Shared buildings and workplaces is for spaces other people must still walk through: a residential stair and lift lobby, or an office or hotel floor that stays in operation. Exteriors and finishes is for the street elevation, and for sheen, primer or pattern once the surfaces themselves are known. Open the group when you need the boundary between its two services, including what to attach to a message. Open the service when you need preparation and the limits of that instruction. A Victoria address can need more than one page. A flat in a Cathedral mansion block may need the private-room service and, if the street sashes are included, the exterior service as well. Name each part in the enquiry. The group cards and the service names on this page both remain available, so you can go straight to a service without opening the group first.

Sources: Westminster Cathedral conservation area audit