DH Painter & Decorator paints doors, window casements, frames and skirting boards in Great Doddington, on the Nene Valley side, 8.3 miles east of Northampton. Dean matches the paint to the house: breathable, like-for-like finishes on the listed stone cottages and durable modern coatings on the 20th-century homes.
Two kinds of joinery along one street
Great Doddington’s woodwork falls into two quite separate groups. In the old heart of the village, the joinery belongs to limestone cottages and farmhouses built between the 16th and 19th centuries: timber casements under wooden lintels, a few stone-mullioned windows, ledged plank doors, and boarded cheeks on the dormers. Outside it, the post-war bungalows and ribbon-built houses have the factory-primed doors, architraves and skirtings found in most post-war homes.
The two groups need different paints and different preparation, so the first thing Dean does on a visit is work out which kind of house he is standing in. For the general method on doors, frames and skirting boards, see our main doors, skirtings and woodwork page. This page covers what is particular to Great Doddington.
Listed cottages: like-for-like, breathable, no blowlamps
Several houses in the village are listed, including 1 Doctors Lane, 36 and 47 High Street and 39 Lower Street, and the Old Vicarage on Church Lane is Grade I. On listed fabric, repainting normally means matching what is already there. A change of colour or material on doors and windows may need listed building consent, so if you want to move away from the existing scheme, check with North Northamptonshire Council before any paint is ordered.
Old softwood and oak set into limestone walls holds and releases moisture differently from modern timber. Rather than sealing it under a hard, non-breathing gloss, we use microporous or linseed-type paints that let the wood dry out. Preparation is by hand: scraping back loose material, sanding, filling with a flexible filler and spot-priming bare wood. Old paint layers on cottages of this age may contain lead, so suspect coats are rubbed down wet rather than dry-sanded, and the dust is cleaned up as we go.
The thatched pair at 24 and 26 High Street is a good reminder of why flame never comes near paint stripping in the old core. Heat guns and blowlamps close to thatch, or to dry timber under deep eaves, are not worth the risk, so stripping is done with scrapers and chemical strippers.
Front doors that face down the valley
A door on the Nene side of the village, looking across to Grendon and Wollaston, gets low winter sun and rain blown up the slope. The bottom rail and the threshold fail first: end grain soaks up water, the paint lifts at the corners, and the door starts to swell and stick in its frame. Whenever we can swing a door fully open, we seal its bottom edge and exposed end grain, a detail nobody sees afterwards but one that does more for the life of the paint than an extra top coat.
Doors shaded by the big trees in the old core, such as those near the churchyard yews or around The Old Vicarage, pick up sticky sap and a green film. A degreasing wash comes before any sanding, otherwise the new coat will not grip.
Indoors: settled frames and straight skirtings
Inside the old houses, plank doors with ledges and braces hang in frames that have settled into the walls over centuries. Skirtings, where they exist, follow walls that are rarely straight, so cutting in is done freehand along the actual line of the wall. An eggshell or a flat oil finish usually suits this joinery better than high gloss, which picks out every ripple in old timber.
The bungalows at 44-54 High Street, the houses at St Nicholas Court and the rest of the ribbon development are simpler. Flush or panelled doors, MDF or softwood skirtings and standard architraves take a water-based satin or gloss well. Somewhere between the two are the farm conversions at Top Farm, Glebe Farm and Grove Farm, with large new joinery set against old stone, where a clean line against rough walling matters as much as the coats themselves.
Doors on the pavement edge
Where a cottage door opens straight onto the High Street footway, it has to be painted and still close and lock by the end of the day. We start the door early in the working day, pick a quicker-drying exterior product in cool weather, and leave a cone and wet-paint sign on the pavement until it is touch dry. The door is left on the latch or wedged slightly ajar, never propped across the path, so people can still walk past.
There is more about the village and the other work we cover there on our Great Doddington area page, and the painter and decorator cost guide explains what affects the cost of woodwork.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
