At the front door · RG
Raised ground-floor flats in Putney
The original front door of the house, a short flight up from the pavement, and behind it the best rooms in the building — high ceilings, tall windows and proportions the rest of the conversion does not get. This is the easiest level in SW15 to move out of, and it is worth saying so plainly.
When a raised ground-floor move goes slowly, the reason is almost always outside the building rather than inside it.
What a raised ground-floor move involves
The door is the constraint, not the stairs
A short entrance flight barely registers. What can register is the front door itself — original doors in this stock are frequently narrower than modern equivalents, and the frame is often something nobody is allowed to touch.
That is a manageable limit and a predictable one. We measure the opening at survey and compare it against your largest pieces, and in the great majority of cases everything goes through without argument.
Big rooms, big furniture
The flip side of generous proportions is that people furnish to fit them. A raised ground-floor flat in Putney frequently contains a larger sofa, a bigger table and taller bookcases than the same nominal size would elsewhere.
It matters most when you are moving upward or inward — a piece bought for a room with three-metre ceilings does not automatically belong in a first-floor conversion or a smaller flat somewhere else. We flag that at survey, because it is cheaper to know now.
Sharing an entrance
Most of these flats still share the front door and a short stretch of hall with the floors above. Less of it than a first-floor move, but the same courtesies apply: runners down, the route to one side, and the door not wedged open for an hour.
A note to the other flats the week before costs nothing and removes nearly all of the friction.
Where the time actually goes
Parking. In the conversion streets the nearest legal standing is frequently not outside your door, and the carrying distance from pavement to vehicle is the largest single variable on an otherwise straightforward job.
That is what the survey is measuring when we ask about the street rather than the flat.
Raised ground floor
Questions about raised ground floor
01 Is this really the easiest level?
Inside the building, yes, comfortably. A short flight, wide rooms and one door to negotiate. Outside the building it is the same parking problem as everywhere else in SW15.
02 Can you survey by video?
This is the level where video works best, because there is no complicated staircase to assess. We will still ask for a photograph of the front door and the entrance flight.
03 Our furniture is very large. Is that a problem?
Rarely coming out of a raised ground floor. It can be a problem going in at the other end, which is why we measure the destination too rather than only the origin.
04 Do we share the hall with the upstairs flats?
Usually, and it is worth telling them the date. We protect the shared route as standard.
05 Do you move on Saturdays?
Yes. Any weekend difference appears on the written quote before you commit.
Which floor, at both ends?
That and the two addresses. If you can also measure the clear diagonal at the turn in your staircase, we can usually answer the furniture question straight away.