DH Painter & Decorator repaints shopfronts and commercial frontages in Grange Park, NN4, about 3.4 miles south of Northampton town centre. The work here is mainly the modern units in the local centre and the hotel and restaurant frontages near Saxon Avenue, and Dean plans it around trading hours.
The units around Williams Way and Wilks Walk
Grange Park’s shops are grouped in one local centre rather than along a traditional high street. Around Williams Way and Wilks Walk you will find a Co-op Food store, The Parks Medical Practice, Grange Park Dental Practice, Kiddi Caru Day Nursery, along with takeaways and hairdressers. The units went up as part of the planned village, so the frontages are a different job from the panelled timber shopfronts with stallrisers and cornices you see in central Northampton.
On units like these, the painted surfaces are typically the signage fascia board, any timber or previously painted window and door frames, soffits over the entrances and rendered or masonry sections between units. Factory-coated frames are assessed one by one, and Dean will say plainly when a surface is better left alone or cleaned rather than painted.
Hotels, a Harvester and a pub near the M1
The second cluster is hospitality. On Saxon Avenue and Cheaney Drive, close to the M1, are the Campanile Hotel, the Holiday Inn Express and the Harvester, and The Wig and Walnut pub is on Baines Way. Frontages like these take a lot of road grime because of where they are, so washing down comes before any sanding or priming, and washable finishes make sense for entrances and signage boards that need to look clean every day.
Working around a parade that stays open
Very few businesses in a small local centre can close for a repaint, and some of them cannot even shut a door. The Parks Medical Practice, the dental practice and Kiddi Caru each have people arriving all day, and a food store has deliveries as well as customers. That shapes how the work is run:
- Timing. The noisiest preparation is planned for quieter parts of the week, agreed with you before we start.
- Entrances first or last. Doors are done at the start or end of a session so customers and patients can always get in.
- Low-odour products. Where fumes could drift into a surgery, nursery or food premises, we choose low-odour paints and keep doors and vents in mind.
- Signage and safety. Wet paint signs go wherever a hand or a buggy could brush the new coat.
Exterior paint still needs dry weather and a reasonable temperature to cure, so if rain is forecast we would rather move a shift than waste a coat. The broader approach, including what a frontage repaint covers and how it is sequenced, is on our main shopfront painting page. Inside work for the same premises is covered by our commercial painting service.
Colour and branding on a modern estate
With no conservation area to answer to, a business here can repaint in its own brand colours, which is not a given in neighbouring villages such as Collingtree or Wootton. Leases and landlord agreements often say something about frontage colours, though, so check those before choosing a new scheme. Where several units share a building, matching the paint used on the neighbouring fascias keeps the parade looking tidy.
If a new tenant is moving into a vacant unit, the frontage is easiest to repaint before fit-out finishes and the doors open. Painting an empty shop means no customers to work around, and the fascia board can be prepared and primed ready for new signage to be fixed. Where the signage is staying, it is masked or carefully removed and refitted, depending on how it is mounted.
Grange Park is inside our coverage from Northampton, and Dean can visit at a time that suits the business to look at your frontage and give a free quote.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
