Dean decorates rented homes in Flore for landlords and letting agents, travelling about 6.7 miles west from Northampton. Flore's rental homes can be anything from a flat within a divided 17th-century farmhouse to a former local authority house, so the paint and preparation are chosen for the building rather than from one standard spec.
What kind of rental property is Flore?
We have not found reliable figures for how many Flore homes are rented, so we will not guess. What we can say is that the village’s housing produces some unusual lets. A letting agency is based on Spring Lane, and the stock it could be handling ranges widely:
- Yeoman farmhouses from around 1690 to 1720, some of which have been divided into several dwellings.
- Georgian and Victorian terraced cottages on Bliss Lane, Sutton Street and around The Green.
- Inter-war and post-war houses on Brockhall Road, The Crescent and Collins Hill.
- Later local authority housing on the north side of Nether Lane, much altered since it was built.
- Buff brick bungalows in The Orchard off Kings Lane and newer homes on the northern edge.
Divided farmhouses and listed lets
A flat or cottage carved out of an old farmhouse brings the house’s age into every tenancy. Walls are often lime plaster on stone or cob, and they need breathable paint. A previous landlord may have rolled vinyl emulsion over everything for speed; when that starts to flake near the floor or on outside walls, a quick touch-up in the same paint only buys a few months. We would rather tell you that at the quote than have the problem return at the next inventory check.
Roughly 45 entries in the parish are listed. If the let is in one of them, changing finishes, stripping old paintwork or repainting joinery in a new colour can need listed building consent. For a standard repaint between tenants, like for like, that is rarely an issue, but we will flag anything that goes further. Outside, the conservation area appraisal favours timber windows painted white, so a landlord who keeps the sashes painted protects both the tenancy and the frames.
Turning round a Nether Lane or Brockhall Road house
The 20th-century houses north of the High Street and on Nether Lane are simpler to turn round. Plaster is later, there are no conservation rules outside the boundary, and the job is the usual end-of-tenancy list: fill and sand fixings, wash down kitchen and hall walls, repaint in a neutral scheme and refresh the skirtings and doors. We keep a record of colours and products for each property so the next void can be patched rather than repainted where the walls are still sound. Lower properties toward the Nene floodplain are worth a damp check on ground-floor walls before repainting, because staining that comes back after a fortnight lands on the landlord.
Keys, access and the village lanes
Flore sits between the M1 at Junction 16 and the A5, and since the bypass opened in November 2018 the High Street no longer carries the A45 traffic, which makes loading outside the north-side houses straightforward. Lets in the old core are different: a cottage door on The Green or Sutton Street may open within a stride of passing traffic, so we ask the agent or landlord where we can unload. We collect keys from the agent or landlord, send photos at the end of each job and return keys the same way.
Our main landlord and letting agent decorating page explains how we work with agents across the area, the cost guide covers how quotes are built up, and the Flore page covers our other work in the village.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
