Fabric that fails easily · A
Timber, lime and old glass
The oldest fabric in the district, and the least forgiving. Nothing about the furniture in a Wealden house is unusual; everything about the surfaces it has to pass is, and they fail in ways modern materials do not.
Plasterboard bruises and can be filled. Lime on lath loses a patch, and the patch has to be matched.
What a period move involves
Grit is the enemy, not the wardrobe
On unsealed oak or elm the scratches almost never come from furniture. They come from grit carried in underfoot and then walked up and down a hallway for several hours by people concentrating on something heavy.
So the runners are as much about the boots as the load, and they go the full width of the route rather than down the middle of it. On a wet day in a lane-served house that single decision prevents most of the damage there was ever going to be.
Measure the door head, not the doorway
In a timber-framed house the clear height at a doorway is frequently lower than anywhere else in the room, and it is rarely what a modern eye expects. A tall chest that stands comfortably in the room will not tilt through the opening.
Two numbers at survey — the lowest clear head on the route, and the longest rigid dimension of your tallest piece — settle almost all of it. Where they do not agree, we know weeks in advance rather than on the morning.
Glass is the one permanent risk
Crown, cylinder and early plate glass cannot be matched by modern float. A pane in a front door is the likeliest casualty in a house of this age, because that door is opened, held, propped and passed a hundred times in a day.
The answer is simple and it is the first thing we do: the door comes off its hinges and goes somewhere safe, or where it cannot, it is boarded across the glazing.
Uneven floors change the plan
An old floor that dips means a piece cannot be walked on its corners the way it could on a level one, and a sack truck behaves unpredictably. More of the work is carried rather than rolled, which takes more crew and shows up honestly in the quotation.
Timber, lime and old glass
Questions about timber, lime and old glass
- Should we take down the pictures ourselves?
- Yes, and the mirrors too. You know which fixings in old plaster are sound and we do not, and a hook pulling out takes a patch of lime with it.
- Can you get a sofa through a low door head?
- Often, by taking the door off and tilting. Where the clear height genuinely will not allow it, we will have established that at survey and planned a window or an alternative route.
- What about inglenooks and old brick floors?
- Boards across anything bedded on sand, and nothing stacked against a soft brick or stone surround. Both are more fragile than they look.
- Is a beamed ceiling a problem?
- Only for tall pieces being lifted upright. Tell us at survey which items are tall and we will work out where they can and cannot be stood up.
- Do you charge more for a period house?
- It generally takes longer, because the protection is real work, and the quotation says so rather than absorbing it and rushing. It reflects the job rather than the postcode.
- Our house is listed. Does that change the removal?
- Not in itself — listing controls alteration rather than carrying. It matters for fitted items and for anything fixed to the fabric, and we fix nothing. See the listing section on the home page.
What is the house made of?
Both addresses, and roughly when the one you are leaving was built. That second answer tells us which category you are in and what the day needs.