Dean takes on commercial painting in Hardingstone, on Northampton's southern edge, 1.8 miles from the town centre. The parish has two very different sets of business premises: small units, shops and pubs in the historic village, and part of Brackmills Industrial Estate to the north-east.
Two business districts in one parish
Commercial work in Hardingstone splits clearly in two. In the village there is the Hardingstone Small Business Centre on the High Street, made up of converted farm buildings and a former garage. Along the same street are the Londis, the post office, a corner shop and a handful of hairdressers, with The Crown and The Sun pubs completing the list. All of these sit in or right next to the conservation area. To the north-east the parish boundary takes in a section of Brackmills Industrial Estate, Asda’s warehouse among it. The decoration needed in these two places has almost nothing in common.
How we plan commercial jobs in general, including phasing, protecting stock and keeping areas open, is on our main commercial painting page. This page covers the details for Hardingstone.
Converted barns at the Small Business Centre
The business centre occupies old stone threshing barns and farm buildings, now in commercial use. Inside, the walls may be exposed stone, old lime plaster, or new studwork and plasterboard put in during conversion, and many units have a mix of all three. Each surface needs its own paint. Lime and stone need breathable mineral or limewash-type finishes, while plasterboard partitions take a hard-wearing commercial emulsion. Using one vinyl paint over everything is a common shortcut, and it shows in a few years as flaking on the old walls.
Outside, the buildings are in the conservation area. Bare stone should stay unpainted. Painted joinery such as doors, frames and barn-door boarding should be repainted in colours that suit the warm brown ironstone and red brick of the village. We agree working hours with each tenant or the site manager, so a unit is not left open or blocked while its business is trading.
Shops, pubs and the village street
The village shops are small, and the work is usually a single sales floor, a salon, a back room or the outside of the premises. Most of the street is tight to the footway, with narrow pavements, overhead cables along the High Street and double yellow lines in the core. External work on these premises needs a safe ladder or tower position and pedestrian protection, planned with you in advance. We have a separate shopfront painting page if the frontage is the main job.
- Hairdressers: moisture and product resistance near basins, and phased work so chairs stay in use.
- Pubs: durable finishes in bars and corridors. The Crown dates from the 1930s and stands back from the road, so outside access is easier there than on buildings that open onto the footway.
- Convenience shop and post office: working around stock and opening hours, with any outside colours suited to the conservation area.
Brackmills units
Brackmills arrived in the 1970s, when Houghton Hill was cut back from a through road to the cycleway it is now. The part of the estate inside Hardingstone parish, including the Asda warehouse, is a different kind of work: large warehouse and distribution units, offices attached to them, staff welfare areas and loading zones. The main issues are scale and access. High walls and ceilings need powered access or scaffold towers. Areas in use have to be fenced off, and the work has to fit around shifts and deliveries, not the other way round. Office and welfare areas are conventional commercial redecoration, using scrubbable finishes in corridors and kitchens. For warehouse walls, cladding and steelwork, we would quote after a site visit that looks at the substrate and the operating pattern.
Getting a quote
For any premises in the parish, from a single salon to a Brackmills unit, Dean will visit, look at the surfaces and access, and agree a programme before quoting. Our Hardingstone area page covers the village’s homes and history.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
