Dean paints internal doors, frames, skirtings and architraves in Blackthorn, the 1970s New Town estate in NN3 about 3.8 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Most jobs here involve original flush or moulded doors and softwood skirtings carrying decades of gloss, brought up to date with a satinwood or eggshell system.
Fifty years of gloss on 1970s joinery
Blackthorn went up from the mid-1970s. The county Historic Environment Record notes topsoil being scraped in September 1974 “prior to terracing for houses” on the first phase of the estate. That puts most of the original internal joinery at around fifty years old, and over that time a skirting board in a family house can collect several coats of gloss, often from different decades and different brands. The result is familiar: rounded-over mouldings where the profile has filled in, yellowing on white oil gloss in rooms with little daylight, and chips along the bottom of door edges where the vacuum cleaner catches them.
Before any new coat goes on, that build-up has to be dealt with. Where layers are sound we key them with abrasive and clean off the dust. Where they are flaking or crazed, we scrape back to a firm edge and spot-prime the bare softwood. Lead is an outside chance in joinery of this date, though early components or doors brought in from elsewhere can carry it, so on older layers we test or abrade under control rather than power-sanding blind. The full preparation sequence, from degreasing to knotting, is set out on our main door and skirting painting page.
Flush doors, moulded doors and what suits each
Many Blackthorn houses still have the internal doors they were built with, or close replacements: plain flush doors with a hardboard or ply face, and moulded panel doors fitted in later refreshes. Each takes paint differently.
- Flush doors show every brush mark and roller stipple across a wide flat face, so we lay off in one direction and use a finish with good flow. Damaged hardboard edges are filled and sanded before priming.
- Moulded doors collect paint in the recesses. Old runs in the panel corners are cut back before recoating, otherwise they show through the new finish.
- Softwood skirtings and architraves are usually plain profiles. Gaps where they meet the wall are caulked once the paint has been keyed.
Because the rooms are compact and the doors plain, a clean satinwood or eggshell tends to look right here, rather than heritage colours or high gloss. Water-based satinwood also stays whiter on a dim landing than traditional oil gloss. If you would like a coloured door against white walls, or the reverse, we can talk it through on the visit.
Getting kit to a footpath-fronted front door
Blackthorn was laid out on Radburn principles, with footpaths kept apart from the roads. Plenty of homes face a pedestrian walk, Birds Hill Walk among them, rather than a street, while cars sit in courts like Collmead Court or Pikemead Court. For woodwork that matters more than you might expect. Doors are sometimes taken off and painted flat on trestles to get a better finish, which needs space and a dry place for them to stand. In a mid-terrace with no side access, everything comes through the front door, so we sheet the hall first and plan the order of rooms so that doors are back on their hinges before the end of each day.
Parking in the courts is tight, so we bring what the job needs rather than a full van load, and agree where materials can be left overnight on longer jobs.
Woodwork as part of a wider Blackthorn job
Wear on these houses tends to show at the joinery first: dented door linings, split skirtings and patches of earlier DIY painting. A woodwork-only job can stand on its own, but it is also where we start when someone is redecorating a whole floor: doing the timber first means the wall colour cuts in cleanly to a finished edge. More about the estate and the other work we cover there is on our Blackthorn area page. If you are comparing quotes, the guide to choosing a decorator lists the questions worth asking about preparation.
Dean covers Blackthorn from our Northampton base, about 3.8 miles south-west of the estate. Call 07539 779 036 to arrange a free quote.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
