Dean paints decorative finishes in Ecton Brook, the NN3 5 estate about 4.1 miles east of Northampton town centre. Because the houses were built without period features, most requests are about adding character: painted panelling, two-tone walls and the odd feature effect.
Adding character rather than restoring it
In older parts of Northampton, decorative work often means picking out cornicing or a ceiling rose that has been there for a century. Ecton Brook’s houses, built by the Development Corporation from the late 1970s, were built plainly, with no original period features to restore. So decorative finishes here are a small, specific service. Owners usually want to give a plain box room or living room some shape and interest, without anything fussy that crowds a small space.
The options that suit these houses are:
- painted wall panelling, from simple shaker-style frames to board-and-batten;
- a two-tone split, with a deeper colour below a painted line at dado height;
- colour blocking, such as a painted arch behind a bed or a block marking out a desk corner;
- colour drenching, where walls, woodwork and sometimes ceiling go in one shade, which suits a small room surprisingly well.
Panelling on plasterboard walls
Many walls on the estate are plasterboard, which affects how panelling is fixed and finished. If you or a joiner fit MDF panelling, it needs adhesive and fixings suited to the board rather than relying on pins alone, or joints open up as the house moves. Once it is up, we fill every pin hole, caulk the joints where frames meet the wall, sand, prime the bare MDF and finish in a durable eggshell. The caulking is what makes it look built in. Without it, a thin shadow line shows at every edge.
Hallways where decoration has to take a knock
In the terraced houses around the squares, the hall is narrow and the staircase climbs from just behind the front door. That is where a decorative finish can also be practical. Panelling or a darker two-tone band on the lower half of the stair wall takes the scuffs from bags and pushchairs, and a hard-wearing eggshell wipes clean. A delicate paint effect, by contrast, would be ruined within months there. We’d rather tell you that before you spend the money.
Bigger rooms, and where to hold back
Detached homes on Newstead Close, Lakeside Drive and Sheerwater Drive have roomier lounges and dining areas. They can carry more: full-height panelling on one wall, a colour-washed or limewash-effect feature wall, or a contrasting ceiling. Newer homes on the former playing fields have flat new walls that suit crisp colour blocking, once any fresh plaster has been mist-coated.
For a let, or a room in a shared house, we usually advise against decorative effects. Patching one when a tenant leaves is awkward, and a plain durable emulsion is easier to keep up.
Colour drenching deserves a mention for the smallest bedroom in a terrace. Painting walls, skirting, door and frame in one mid-tone removes the hard white outlines that make a small room feel chopped up, and it is quicker to keep tidy than a scheme with contrasting trim. It looks right with a matt on walls and a matching eggshell on the woodwork, so the colour reads as one surface with a slight change in sheen.
The range of effects we paint is set out on our main decorative finishes service page, and choosing the colours is covered by our colour advice. Ecton Brook lies on the eastern edge of Northampton, about 4.1 miles from the centre, and our guide to decorating in Ecton Brook lists everything else we do there.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
