Whole-house refurbishment
Rewiring, heating, plaster, sash windows and joinery for older houses, done in an order that keeps one room liveable.
One sheet of graph paper, one crew.
Every Squarefoot job starts the same way: we measure your rooms square by square, draw what they could become and price it line by line. Then the people who drew it build it, from the first skip to the last skirting board.
one square on our paper = one square foot of your house
From pencil to keys, with the same four people
no hand-offs, no strangers on site
A renovation goes wrong in the gaps between a designer, a builder and the trades. We closed the gaps: one small team measures, draws, gets the permissions and builds, and you have one phone number for all of it.
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Rooms, measured
A free site visit. We measure every room, photograph every wall and ask how you actually live in the house: who cooks, where the coats end up, which door always sticks.
about 90 minutes, tea welcome
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Plans, drawn
Within two weeks you get scaled drawings on graph paper, three layouts to choose from and an itemised price. Planning, party-wall notices and building control are ours to handle.
changes on paper cost nothing
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Walls, raised
One site lead, one crew and a weekly diary with photos. The joiner who fits your kitchen is the one who drew its cabinets, so nothing is lost between the plan and the room.
site swept every evening
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Keys, handed over
We walk the finished rooms with you, clear every item on the snag list and leave the house cleaner than we found it, with the drawings, certificates and guarantees in one folder.
ten-year workmanship guarantee
What we build, room by room
Most of our houses are Edwardian terraces and 1930s semis. We know their walls, their floors and their quirks, and we plan every room as part of the whole house.
Cellar conversions
Tanking, damp-proofing and a light well: a dry room under your feet.
Kitchens
Layouts drawn around how you cook, then units, worktops, plumbing and electrics under one contract.
Rear and side-return extensions
Steel, a glass roof and wide doors to the garden: the kitchen-diner the house never had.
Loft conversions
Dormers, a proper staircase and an en-suite.
Bathrooms
Moved, enlarged or simply done properly.
← street side
a typical terrace, ground floor and loft
garden side →
Priced by the square foot
every quote itemised, line by line
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Refresh
£65per sq ft, from
A new kitchen or bathroom inside the room you already have.
- Units, worktops and tiling
- Plumbing and electrics
- Plastering and decorating
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Rebuild
£140per sq ft, from
The house reorganised inside its own walls.
- Walls knocked through, steels
- New floors, rewiring, heating
- Building control sign-off
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Extend
£210per sq ft, from
Rear, side-return and loft space the house never had.
- Drawings and planning
- Foundations, steel and roof
- Finished to the last skirting
Prices include labour, materials, waste removal and VAT; fixtures you choose yourself are listed separately. Every quote is fixed for 60 days.
Finished rooms
Five houses from last year. Each room was a pencil drawing on our graph paper before it was a room, and each one came out the way it was drawn.
drawn in blue, built in colour
The pine kitchen
Chorlton · kitchen in a 1905 terrace · 9 weeks
kept the original boards
Bedroom under the skylight
Didsbury · loft conversion with en-suite · 12 weeks
stairs drawn three times
The green bathroom
Levenshulme · bathroom moved upstairs · 5 weeks
tiles set out on paper first
Front room, sashes restored
Whalley Range · windows, plaster and floor · 7 weeks
every sash rehung by hand
The long kitchen-diner
Burnage · 260 sq ft rear extension · 16 weeks
the back wall is now a steel
The site diary
sent every friday, with photos
Every client gets a weekly page from the site lead: what happened, what is next and what we need you to decide. Here are a few pages from an extension in Chorlton.
Week 1
Skip on the road, letters through the neighbours' doors. Kitchen stripped back to brick and the old boiler gone.
Week 2
Footings dug and inspected. Building control signed them off on Thursday morning.
Week 4
The steel is in. The back wall has gone and the room suddenly feels twice the size.
Week 6
Glass roof on, first fix of wiring and pipes. It rained all Tuesday: the roof stayed dry.
Week 9
Plaster, then the floor. Units delivered and stacked in the front room under dust sheets.
Week 11
Worktops fitted. Snag walk with Amara and Tunde on Friday; four items on the list, all closed by Tuesday.
Before we start, we write to your neighbours
through every door on both sides
Dear neighbours at numbers 38 and 42,
From Monday 3 March we will be building a rear extension at number 40. Before we start, here is what you can expect from us.
We work 8 am to 5 pm on weekdays, never on Sundays. The skip is covered every evening and the pavement swept before we leave. Deliveries arrive before 9:30, so the road is clear for the school run.
The noisiest days come in weeks 2 and 4, when the footings are dug and the back wall comes down. We will knock on your door the day before each.
If anything bothers you, call Dan, our site lead, on 0161 000 0000. He would rather hear about it on day one than in week ten.
With thanks and a tin of biscuits, the Squarefoot crew
Snag list · 40 Example Road
walked through on friday with the owners
- Garden door catches on the frame
- Grout haze on the splashback
- Socket by the hob slightly off level
- Paint nick on a stair spindle
- Extractor hood rattles on high
- Bathroom door closes too fast
Signed off
The snag list ends empty
Every job finishes with a slow walk through the new rooms. Whatever you notice goes on the list, and whatever is on the list is fixed before the final invoice, usually within the week.
After that, our workmanship is guaranteed for ten years, in writing, and the same site lead answers the phone if a door ever sticks again.
Start with a site visitHeard over the garden fence
from owners, and once from a neighbour
They drew our kitchen on graph paper at our own table, and the finished room matches it square for square.
Amara and Tunde, Chorlton The Friday diary was the best part. I always knew what had happened while I was at work.
Helen, Didsbury Our neighbours sent a thank-you card for the builders. That has never happened to us before.
Rob and Mei, Levenshulme
Questions
Asked at the kitchen table
The questions we hear on almost every first visit. Anything else, ask Dan on the phone.
0161 000 0000Do I need planning permission for a rear extension?
Many single-storey rear extensions fall under permitted development, but terraces and conservation areas have their own limits. We check on the first visit and handle the application or a lawful development certificate when it is needed.
How long does a typical job take?
Bathrooms take four to six weeks, kitchens six to nine, lofts ten to twelve and rear extensions twelve to sixteen. The programme is drawn week by week before we start, and the diary tells you where we are against it.
Can we stay in the house during the work?
Usually, yes. We seal off the work with dust screens, keep a temporary kitchen running when we can and plan the noisy and the no-water days with you in advance.
How do payments work?
A small deposit books your start date. After that you pay in stages tied to finished work, never ahead of it, and five per cent is held until the snag list is empty.
Are you insured and certified?
Yes. We carry public liability and contract works insurance, our electrics and gas work are certified, and every certificate goes into the handover folder with the drawings.
Book a free site visit
Tell us a little about the house and the room you keep sketching. Dan will call within one working day to find a time that suits you.
- Phone
- 0161 000 0000
- Yard
- Example Yard, Manchester
- Areas
- Chorlton, Didsbury, Withington, Levenshulme, Burnage, Whalley Range