DH Painter & Decorator repaints shopfronts and small commercial frontages in Blackthorn, NN3, about 3.8 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. The estate's only parade is Blackthorn Bridge Court, so Dean plans this work unit by unit around trading hours.
One local centre, a handful of units
Blackthorn was planned as a self-contained New Town estate, and its shops were grouped in a single local centre rather than strung along a high street. Blackthorn Bridge Court holds the One Stop convenience store with its cash machine, the post office, Imaan Pharmacy, the Hong Kong Takeaway and BGN Nursery. There is no business park on the estate, so shopfront painting here is a small, specific market: a few frontages that a lot of local people walk past every day.
On an estate built from the mid-1970s, a parade’s frontages, fascia boards and frames are likely to have seen several changes of tenant, signage and colour. Expect old fixing holes from previous signs, mismatched patches where boards were repaired, and coatings of different ages side by side. Those all need sorting before a new colour goes on. Holes are filled, repaired sections are primed to match the surrounding board, and any edges where an old sign has protected the paint underneath are sanded back so the line does not show through the new coat. Our main shopfront painting page explains the usual scope of a repaint.
Keeping each business open
The businesses at Bridge Court are the kind people rely on: a post office, a pharmacy, a convenience store, a nursery. Closing for a repaint is not realistic for most of them, so the work is phased. Before starting we agree the timings with you, and then:
- the entrance is done at a point in the day that suits your trade, so the door is never blocked for long;
- wet paint signs go up wherever a customer could brush a frame;
- the area in front of the unit is kept clear and sheeted, with ladders barriered off;
- messier preparation, such as scraping and sanding, is scheduled for quieter periods you identify.
Every business is different. A takeaway’s busy hours differ from a pharmacy’s, and a nursery has children arriving and leaving at set times, so the plan for one unit does not carry over to the next. Outside work also depends on dry weather, so if rain is forecast on a day you have set aside, we would rather move the slot with you than put on a coat that will be spoiled.
Agreeing the scope with the landlord
In a small parade the tenant does not always control the frontage. Leases often say who maintains the outside, and some landlords want every unit in a set colour. It is worth checking before asking for a quote, and if several tenants want their fronts done together, that can be planned as one phased job across the parade. Painting a whole parade at once also means a single run of fascia and frames in one colour, rather than one fresh unit next to faded ones.
Signage is the other thing to settle. We paint around fixed signs, or prepare and paint the board behind a sign that a signwriter or sign company is going to replace. We do not make or fit signs ourselves.
Other premises on the estate
Beyond the shops, the non-residential buildings in Blackthorn are Blackthorn Community Centre on Longmead Court, the Arlbury Road Community Hub and the nursery. Interior or exterior repainting for these falls under our commercial painting service, and they raise the same question as the shops: when can the building be used, and which rooms or areas can be closed off in turn. For home painting across the estate, see our Blackthorn area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
