Keep what survives. Match what did not.
A historic building has already survived everything that was going to destroy it except a bad renovation. The work is deciding what to keep, and being able to prove it.
Scoped per buildingChicago range
Scoped per buildingLisboa range
VariesOn site
$2,400Survey, before any of it
Service 05 of 07. Priced from your survey, never from an average.
Why this is one job and not several
Because replacement is easy and irreversible. Repairing original lime plaster, a timber frame or a masonry facade takes longer and costs more per square metre, and it is the only version still worth something in thirty years.
What is included
- Condition survey with a structural engineer
- Masonry repair and repointing in matched mortar
- Lime plaster repair and replastering
- Timber frame repair, splicing and consolidation
- Joinery restoration, with matched replacements where a piece is lost
What is not
- Full facade replacement, which we will not quote
- Removal of protected elements
- Work requiring a consent we do not expect to be granted
- Archaeological investigation ordered by the authority
Repair, then match, then replace
Raking out by hand is slower than a grinder and it is the reason the stone still has its arris in twenty years.
Four things move this number more than any finish you will choose.
What decides the price
01
What survives
A survey that separates what is sound, what is repairable and what is beyond saving. Everything after it is priced against that list.
02
Mortar and plaster specification
Cement mortar on a lime-built wall traps water and destroys the masonry. Matching the original binder is not nostalgia, it is building physics.
03
The authority
Chicago landmarks review, or the camara and DGPC in Lisboa. Their position is established before design, because it governs openings, windows and facade.
04
Structural timber
In pombalino buildings the gaiola frame is the structure. Opening a wall without understanding it is how a renovation becomes a collapse.
One we finished, with the engineer on site.
A recent one, in full
A 96 m² pombalino apartment whose gaiola frame had been painted over six times and notched for pipework some time after 1950. The notched members were spliced rather than replaced, so the original timber keeps doing its job. Lime plaster in three coats, each allowed to carbonate — the part of the programme that cannot be shortened for anybody.
Read the Estrela Pombalino file — €168,500 · 24 weeks · on time · 2025.
Four things, and the first is the protection status.
What we need from you first
01
The building's protection status
Listed, in a conservation area, or neither. It decides who has to approve what, and we check it before quoting rather than after.
02
Any previous repairs you know about
Cement pointing, gypsum plaster and modern sealants are the three things that most often caused the damage we are being asked to fix.
03
Access for a scaffold or a platform
On a narrow street this is not a detail; it is sometimes a third of the facade cost.
04
Whether you want restoration or replication
Keeping a worn original and making a faithful new one are different jobs at different prices. We will show you both and we will not push you toward the expensive one.
Bring the engineer to the survey, not to the crisis.
On every pombalino and every greystone we bring one. It costs a day and it is the difference between a restoration and an expensive lesson.