About
Pat, Niamh and the people who build it
One yard in Tottenham Hale since 1999, eleven people on the payroll, and the same few trades on every job.
How we got here
Pat Quinlan came to London from County Clare in March 1987 with a bag of tools and a cousin's address in Kilburn. For nine years he worked on other people's sites: office fit-outs in the City, a hospital job in east London, a long run of housing association refurbishments in Hackney. At weekends he converted lofts for people he met on those sites, mostly in Crouch End, where the houses have enough height in the roof to make it worth doing.
In 1996 he stopped doing it at weekends. P. Quinlan Lofts had one van, a lock-up behind a garage in Hornsey and a phone that rang in the kitchen. The first year was eleven lofts, all rooflight and rear dormer conversions within a mile of the Broadway. In 1999 the work moved to a yard on Ashley Road in Tottenham Hale, where we still cut our stairs, store steel and park the vans.
Pat's daughter Niamh grew up in that yard. She studied architectural technology, then spent four years at a practice in Islington drawing extensions and roof schemes for other builders to price. In 2018 she came home to run design, planning and building control for us, which meant that for the first time every drawing we built from was drawn in our own office. The firm was renamed Quinlan & Daughter in 2019. "Dad's idea, not mine," says Niamh.
That change is why we work the way we do now. The person who measures your loft on the survey visit is the person who draws it, submits it to the council and answers building control's questions. The price is fixed only after Niamh has walked the house with Jonah Asamoah, our site manager, so nothing on the drawing is a surprise to the people building it.
We are a small firm on purpose. There are eleven of us on the payroll: carpenters, labourers, Jonah, Carol Dunne in the office, Priya in design, and the two of us. The electricians, plumbers, plasterers and roofers we use have mostly worked with us for more than ten years, and they are the same people on every job. We run five or six projects at a time and would rather turn work down than stretch that.
Most of our clients live in Victorian and Edwardian terraces between Finsbury Park and Walthamstow. Those houses went up quickly, in the 1880s and 1900s, built by speculative builders who used whatever was cheap that year. We have opened enough of those roofs to know what to expect: party walls that stop short of the slates, purlins cut through to fit an old water tank, chimney breasts taken out downstairs in the 1970s and left hanging upstairs. We price for what we find on the survey, and we tell you on the day what we can't see yet.
We also think the dull parts deserve a proper explanation. Party wall notices, lawful development certificates, fire doors on the stair, the principal designer role that came in with the Building Safety Act: none of it is interesting, all of it matters, and a surprising amount of it goes wrong when it's left to the last week. You'll find it written out in plain English on this site, and we'll go through it again in your kitchen at the survey visit.
Pat still cuts every staircase we fit. Niamh still answers the phone when Carol is at lunch. If you'd like us to look at your roof, book a survey visit and one of us will come round with a tape, a torch and a notebook.
Since 1996
- MARCH 1987
Pat arrives in London from County Clare. First job: second-fix carpentry on an office fit-out in the City.
- 1990
First loft: a rooflight conversion for a site foreman in Hornsey, done over eight weekends.
- APRIL 1996
P. Quinlan Lofts starts trading from a lock-up in Hornsey. Eleven lofts in the first year.
- 1999
The firm moves to the yard at Unit 4, Ashley Road, Tottenham Hale. The stair bench goes in the same week.
- 2004
Carol Dunne joins to run the office. The accounts leave Pat's kitchen table.
- 2008
Kemal Arslan joins as a carpenter. First rear extension, a side return in Stroud Green.
- 2011
Jonah Asamoah joins as a labourer. He has run our sites since 2016.
- SEPTEMBER 2018
Niamh Quinlan joins to run design, planning and building control. Drawings come in-house.
- JUNE 2019
Incorporated and renamed Quinlan & Daughter Ltd. "Dad's idea, not mine."
- OCTOBER 2023
New dutyholder rules under the Building Safety Act start. Every contract now names the principal designer and principal contractor in writing.
- 2024
Priya Nair joins as a part-time design assistant.
- SPRING 2026
Our 480th loft since 1996, a rear dormer in Stroud Green.
The people you'll meet
Pat Quinlan
FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR
Pat trained as a carpenter in Ennis and came to London in 1987. He set up on his own in 1996 and has cut loft stairs at the bench in the Ashley Road workshop ever since, which is still where you'll find him most mornings before he goes out to site. He does survey visits on the jobs Niamh can't get to and looks after the carpentry on every build. He is the one to ask about old roofs: which purlins can go, which ones can't, and why an 1890s party wall sometimes stops two courses short of the slates.
Niamh Quinlan
DIRECTOR, DESIGN AND APPROVALS
Niamh studied architectural technology and spent four years at an architecture practice in Islington before joining in 2018. She draws every scheme we build, submits the lawful development certificate or planning application, deals with building control and drafts the party wall notices. On our contracts she is named as principal designer. She is good at the arithmetic of a loft, fitting a stair, a bedroom and a shower room into 40 cubic metres, and she will tell you plainly when something won't fit.
Jonah Asamoah
SITE MANAGER
Jonah joined in 2011 as a labourer, worked alongside every trade we use and has run our builds since 2016. He writes the programme for each job, books the steel, the scaffold and the building control inspections, and is on site every working day. His mobile is the number on the scaffold banner, so neighbours ring him too, and he would rather they did. Every Friday clients get a short written note from him: what happened this week, what happens next week, and anything that has moved.
Carol Dunne
OFFICE MANAGER
Carol has run the office since 2004. She sends the stage invoices, keeps the diary of survey visits and makes sure your contract, party wall paperwork and building control certificates end up in one folder at the end. She knows where every job is at any moment, and which neighbour prefers a letter to a phone call. If you ring the office number, it is usually Carol who answers, and if she doesn't know the answer she will find out and ring you back the same day.
Kemal Arslan
LEAD CARPENTER
Kemal joined in 2008 from a joinery shop in Edmonton. He builds the dormer frames and roof structures on site and makes the fitted eaves storage in our workshop. He has fixed more steel-to-timber connections in north London roofs than he would care to count, and apprentices on our jobs start by working with him. He lives in Harringay, two streets from one of our first side-return extensions, and still walks past to look at its glass roof after heavy rain.
Priya Nair
DESIGN ASSISTANT, PART-TIME
Priya joined in 2024 while studying architectural technology part-time. She does measured surveys with Niamh, draws the existing plans and sections, and builds the 3D models we use to show clients how a room will feel under the slope before anything is ordered. She also keeps the project records in order, from the first sketch to the completion certificate, which in this line of work is a real skill and saves everyone time at the end of a job.
How we're set up
Eleven of us are employed by the firm: the two of us, Jonah, Carol, Kemal, Priya, three carpenters and two labourers. Electrical, plumbing, plastering, roofing and steel fabrication are done by the same small firms on every job, most of whom have worked with us for more than ten years. Our carpenters make the stairs and fitted storage in the workshop at the yard.
Every stair we fit is made at the yard, to the measurements taken in your house. It takes Kemal or Pat about two days, and about two more to fit.
- Company number SHOWN HERE IN A LIVE BUILD
- VAT number SHOWN HERE IN A LIVE BUILD
- Public liability insurance SHOWN HERE IN A LIVE BUILD
- Employers' liability certificate SHOWN HERE IN A LIVE BUILD
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Book a survey visit
One of us will come round with a tape, a torch and a notebook. An hour in your loft, then a written budget estimate within five working days.