The decorating notebook
Decorating a flat or shared building
Work inside one flat still depends on the rest of the building. Establish the communal arrangements before deciding how the rooms will be decorated.
Start with the building’s instructions
Ask the freeholder or managing agent for the requirements relevant to the work. Confirm working arrangements, lift use, keys, delivery access and any documentation needed. Record who can approve decisions affecting communal areas. Do not assume that the arrangements for another flat apply to yours.
A local example of shared architecture
Camden’s Belsize statement identifies Manor Mansions as a red-brick building with stucco detailing, contrasting with the surrounding villas. For a mansion flat or a canal-side apartment, distinguish the interior scope from shared elevations, entrance doors and external joinery before requesting prices.
Protect the route through the building
Photograph the route from the entrance to the flat and identify vulnerable floors, stair edges and corners. Agree protection, material storage and the removal of packaging. Keep shared access and escape routes clear, and confirm how deliveries will be received if the resident is away.
Sequence an occupied flat
Identify the rooms needed for sleeping, working or storage during the project. Discuss furniture movement and when each space can be released. Product instructions should inform ventilation and drying arrangements; a calendar should follow the agreed specification rather than assume every room needs the same time.
Define the finish at the flat door
State whether the door’s internal face, external face and frame are included. Check the responsibility for shared finishes before choosing a new colour. Keep approvals, product references and the room list together so the agreed boundary between private decoration and communal work remains clear.
What to ask the managing agent before you talk dates
A flat enquiry is half building management. Before a programme is discussed, ask the freeholder or agent, in writing, for the rules that apply to this block rather than to a block you lived in before. Useful questions are concrete. Which hours may people be on site. May the lift take materials, and must it be protected. Where may tins and dust sheets stand. Who signs in, and who holds a key if the resident is at work. Are communal carpets to be covered, and who inspects them. Does the agent want method statements, product data or insurance documents before work starts. Asking for those papers is not the same as inventing a credential. Are there conditions on the entrance door, the windows or the balcony because they are demised differently from the rooms. Manor Mansions, which Camden’s Belsize statement describes as red brick with stucco bands, is one local reminder that a flat interior and a shared exterior are different fabrics. Your block may not be that building. Get its own rules. Send the replies with the enquiry so the specification does not assume a freedom the lease withholds.
The door you own and the door the block controls
Flat entrance doors cause more boundary arguments than ceilings. Write down the inner face, the outer face, the frame, the fanlight and the ironmongery as five possible lines, and mark which are yours to decorate. If the block keeps the outer face in a communal colour so the landing reads as one, an interior scheme that spills onto the landing breaks that rule. Ask before you match the hall. Letterboxes, doorbells and numerals may be controlled details. Photograph them and leave them out unless the agent has agreed a change. Inside the threshold, the scope can be as full as you wish: walls, ceilings, cupboards, the room face of the windows. If the windows are the block’s responsibility, say so and do not include the outside. A canal-side apartment and a Belsize mansion flat can share this door problem even though their views do not match. The test is the lease and the agent’s note, not the view. Keep the approval email with the colour schedule so a later committee can see that the landing was respected on purpose.
Drying times and the rooms you still have to sleep in
An occupied flat has less spare air than a house with a spare floor. Plan the sequence around the room you must keep. That may be a bedroom and a bathroom, with the kitchen protected rather than decorated in the same week. Product sheets, not optimism, set the gap between coats and the time before a room is slept in or a cupboard is refilled. Low-odour products still need the ventilation they specify. If the block limits how far a sash may be left open, or how late extract fans may run, tell the specifier. Furniture can rotate through the protected bedroom if the agent allows the landing to be used for a short move. Do not store solvent-smelling tins in a common cupboard. Waste leaves by the agreed route, and not across a neighbour’s balcony. Say whether the household will be away for any night. A specification that assumes an empty flat will be wrong on the first evening if it is not. When the work is done, walk the communal route you used and note any mark while the protection is still down.
Your Primrose Hill project
A room, a façade,
a new direction.
Tell us what you have in mind, where the property is and which surfaces need attention.
Let’s discuss the work
Include the address, current condition and any access arrangements.