Dean decorates rental homes in Earls Barton for landlords and letting agents, mainly repaints between and at the end of tenancies. Earls Barton sits 6.4 miles east of Northampton in NN6, and the work is planned around whether a let is an older stone cottage or one of the later brick houses.
A stone cottage and a later brick house are different lets
Rental property in Earls Barton can mean very different buildings. In the historic streets by The Square and along West Street and High Street, the houses are 17th and 18th century coursed lias limestone with solid walls, small casement windows and, in places, lime plaster inside. Further out are the later brick houses built as the shoe village expanded, which account for most of the homes here. A turnover repaint suits one approach in the newer houses and a different one in the cottages, and getting that wrong is what leads to call-backs.
In the later houses the job is familiar: fill and sand fixings and dents, wash down, two coats of a durable neutral on walls and ceilings, and refresh skirtings and doors. Those surfaces take a hard-wearing, wipeable finish that the next tenant can live with and the next turnover can simply touch up.
Turnover work in a solid-walled cottage
An old lias cottage behaves differently. The village sits on a spring line above the Nene, solid walls take on damp at low level, and a tenant drying washing indoors adds condensation on top. If the last repaint was a vinyl emulsion over lime plaster, you may find flaking paint and tidemarks around the skirting that look like tenant damage but are really a paint problem.
Dean will point that out in the report rather than paint over it and leave you with the same complaint six months on. Where a breathable paint is the right fix, he will explain the trade-off: it handles moisture far better, though some breathable finishes are less scrubbable than a standard durable emulsion, so we pick products that balance the two. Black mould around cold window reveals gets treated with a fungicidal wash before any repainting, and we will mention any ventilation issue you may want to look at.
Listed lets: what to check first
If your let is one of the 28 listed buildings in Earls Barton’s conservation area, find out early what is protected. Painting the inside of a listed house in the existing colours and materials is normally routine. Stripping original finishes, painting over bare stone or exposed timber, or changing the colour of a listed front door or window can need consent from North Northamptonshire Council, and settling that before the void period starts stops the decorating stalling halfway.
Working for landlords who live elsewhere
If you manage an Earls Barton let from elsewhere, that is easy to work around. We arrange key collection or access with you or the agent, photograph the property before and after, and send a short written note listing what was done, any defects found such as a sticking casement, blown plaster or damp at a plinth, and anything we left for another trade.
Parking can affect timing in the historic core. The streets around The Square have buildings set straight onto the footway, and van space is shared with shoppers, so a cottage there needs deliveries and set-up timed differently from a house with a drive.
To keep turnaround short, contact us as soon as you know the tenancy end date. More detail on how rental repaints are scoped is on our main landlord and letting agent decorating page. The cost guide covers what drives the price of a turnover, and the Earls Barton area page covers other work in the village.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
