We paint shopfronts in Boothville, NN3, about 3 miles north-east of Northampton town centre, on the Boothville Green parade and the shops along Booth Lane North. These are small single-unit frontages, so Dean plans each job around your opening hours and keeps the pavement and doorway usable.
A small parade with very different trading hours
Commercial Boothville is compact. The Boothville Green parade is a row of small single units, from the newsagent and TK Supermarket to a hairdresser, a bike shop, a TV and PC repair business, three takeaways and Ryan’s restaurant. Booth Lane North adds a greengrocer, an off-licence and one more convenience store. What makes painting here awkward is that those businesses keep very different hours. A newsagent and convenience stores typically open early, the takeaways and restaurant are busiest in the evening, and the hairdresser has appointments through the day. On a shared parade, work on one unit has to fit around the neighbours as well.
In practice that means:
- for takeaways, painting the frontage in the morning and early afternoon, so it is dry and the area clear before evening service
- for early-opening shops, starting fascia and upper work after the first morning rush, and leaving door frames until last
- splitting a frontage over two or three short sessions rather than closing it for a whole day
Pavement, customers and the school run
Parade shopfronts open straight onto the pavement, so we use barriers and signs around ladders, keep one route to the door clear, and never leave a wet door frame unmarked. Booth Lane North also carries Boothville Primary School and the community centre, and gets busy at drop-off and pick-up. For the Booth Lane shops, we unload and put up access equipment outside those times, as there are more children and parents on foot then than at any other point in the day.
Inside the takeaway: grease and steam
Shopfront jobs at food premises often extend to the customer area just inside the door, next to the counter and the kitchen. Ordinary emulsion marks easily and holds grease there. We use wipeable, scrubbable finishes that cope with steam and frequent cleaning, and we degrease the walls before painting so the new coat sticks. Work near the kitchen is done when it is not in use, which for evening takeaways usually means the morning.
Keeping smells down beside food and clients
A parade that mixes a hairdresser, a restaurant and food counters with a newsagent leaves little room for strong solvent smells. Where the surface allows, we use low-odour water-based primers and finishes, and keep solvent-based gloss for the outside joinery that genuinely needs it, timed so the door can stay propped open while it dries. We also arrange the quote visit outside your busiest hours, so you can walk us round the unit without customers waiting at the counter.
Signs, colours and permissions
Boothville has no conservation area, so a straightforward repaint of a shopfront in its existing colours is unlikely to need consent. A bold colour change or new signage can be different, so check with West Northamptonshire Council if you are changing the look, and with your landlord if your lease controls the frontage. We mask and work around fixed signs rather than removing them, and we match brand colours from a sample or reference you provide.
For more on how we approach shop frontages, see the main shopfront painting service. Our Boothville page lists everything else we cover in the district, and the guide to choosing a painter and decorator sets out the questions worth asking before you book anyone.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
