Areas we cover in Jerusalem

Baka mixes restored Ottoman and Mandate-era stone houses with later apartment blocks, so two flats on the same street can have completely different walls behind the plaster. Thick stone rewards a proper anchor and punishes a guess. The older buildings also tend to have settled over the decades, which is why dropped doors and misaligned latches are a routine call here.

Talpiot runs from residential streets into the commercial and industrial strip, and the housing reflects it: mid-century apartment buildings, newer developments, and converted units above the shops. The furniture showrooms are here too, which means a lot of Talpiot work is a delivery that arrived flat-packed that morning and needs assembling before the room can be used.

The German Colony is largely nineteenth-century Templer houses and the apartment buildings that filled in around them, much of it under conservation rules that make sympathetic work the only sensible approach. High ceilings and solid stone walls mean shelves, mirrors and televisions need fixings chosen for the wall rather than whatever came in the box. Original doors and shutters are worth repairing rather than replacing.