We repaint shopfronts in Far Cotton, the suburb across the river from Northampton town centre, about 0.9 miles south. That covers the shops on St Leonard's Road and Gloucester Avenue and the local shop in Mereway. Dean plans each job around opening times and quotes free.
Far Cotton’s shopping streets
Far Cotton’s high street is St Leonard’s Road, running between Towcester Road and London Road, two main through routes. Gloucester Avenue has its own shops, and Mereway has a local shop. These are neighbourhood parades that serve people who live within walking distance, so a frontage that looks cared for matters to people who shop there every week.
A shop on a short local parade is also seen alongside its neighbours. A freshly painted front next to tired ones stands out, and when several businesses on the same stretch repaint at once, the parade as a whole looks better. If neighbouring owners are thinking about the same thing, it can be worth getting quotes together.
Far Cotton also has community buildings on Towcester Road, such as the Rec Centre and the Methodist church, whose frontages face the same traffic as the shops. They have their own opening patterns, so the same staged approach applies: agree the quiet hours first, then fit the noisy and messy parts of the work into them.
Painting while you keep trading
Few local shops can close for a repaint, and on St Leonard’s Road the pavement is in use all day. We plan the work in stages:
- Quiet spells first: washing down, scraping and sanding, the stages that create dust and need the footway clear, timed for the quietest part of your trading day.
- During the day: priming and painting areas away from the door, with wet paint signs and a clear route for customers.
- Entrance last or first: the door and frame are done at the quietest point you tell us about, so customers can always get in.
Short-stay parking and loading on a busy linking road need thinking about too. We agree where the van and ladders will stand before starting, keep the pavement passable, and pack away tidily at the end of each day.
What a south-of-the-river frontage has to cope with
Traffic using St Leonard’s Road to get between Towcester Road and London Road leaves a grey film on fascia boards, window frames and stallrisers. Low-lying Far Cotton also sits close to the Nene and the canal, so timber at ground level stays damp for longer. That affects the job in two ways. Every surface is washed thoroughly before painting, so the new coat bonds to the surface and not to road grime. Bottom rails, sills and stallriser timber are probed for soft spots, because rot hides behind paint at that height.
For durable colour on a busy road, a hard-wearing exterior gloss or satin on timber and a dirt-resistant masonry paint on any rendered stallriser keep their looks longer and wash down easily between repaints. Window frames and the shop door get the most handling, so they need a finish that can be wiped without dulling.
Colours and signage
Far Cotton is not a conservation area, so a shop here has more freedom over colour than one in a protected street. If you are changing your sign lettering or adding an illuminated sign, check with West Northamptonshire Council whether advertisement consent is needed, as that is separate from painting. We can paint the fascia in your brand colours and leave a clean, level surface ready for a signwriter or sign fitter.
Our main shopfront painting page explains how we work on commercial frontages, and the commercial painting page covers interiors too. For everything else we cover in the area, see our Far Cotton page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
