DH Painter & Decorator repaints rental homes in Harpole, NN7, for landlords and letting agents, about 3.9 miles west of Northampton town centre. Most Harpole homes are owner-occupied, so lettings work here is mostly occasional and centred on the newer estate houses.
What the rental picture in Harpole looks like
Harpole is not a big lettings village. At the 2001 census, 82.6% of households were owner-occupied, so most Harpole homes are lived in by the people who own them. There is no recent count of rented properties in the sources we use, so we will not guess at one. In practice, lettings are more likely to be among the newer homes the parish council lists as Harlestone Park, Norwood Quarter and Western Gate than in the listed cottages of the conservation area.
For a landlord, that usually means a single house rather than a block of flats, and the decorating brief follows from that.
Turning round a new-build let
A rented house on one of the Harpole estates usually comes back from a tenancy with the same set of problems: scuffed hallway walls, marks around light switches and door handles, chips along MDF skirting boards and cracks at ceiling corners that have opened since the house was built. Often the walls still carry the original builder’s emulsion, which does not wash, so marks cannot simply be wiped off.
Our usual approach is:
- Fill and sand nail holes, dents and settlement cracks, and caulk the gaps at skirting and architrave joints.
- Replace the builder’s emulsion in hallways, stairs and the kitchen-diner with a scrubbable matt or eggshell that the next tenant can wipe clean.
- Keep to one neutral wall colour across the house, so future touch-ups come from a single tin.
- Undercoat and repaint chipped MDF woodwork in a durable satin rather than high gloss, which shows every knock.
We will tell you which rooms really need a full repaint and which only need patching, so you are not paying for work that does not affect the let.
Older rented houses in the village core
Now and then a period house is let, perhaps a Victorian brick house or an ironstone cottage off High Street or Park Lane. These are not decorated like a new build. Lime plaster walls need breathable paint, and old plank doors need a microporous finish that will not crack. If the house is listed or in the conservation area, exterior colours on windows and doors should stay as they are unless you have checked with West Northamptonshire Council. We tell a landlord about this at the quote stage, as it affects the products and the time involved.
Damp, flood marks and the inventory
Harpole was hit by flooding in winter 2024, and its parish council has put out guidance since. If a rented property was affected, tide marks or damp stains must be dealt with properly before a repaint, or they will be back by the next inspection. We check the wall is dry, use a stain-blocking primer over the marks and then finish to match. Clear notes of what was done also help when the check-out report is compared with the original inventory.
Working with an agent or a landlord who lives elsewhere
Harpole is 3.9 miles from Northampton town centre, near M1 junction 16, so landlords and agents based further away can hand over keys and leave us to it. We can work to an agent’s schedule of works, send photos of finished rooms, and fit the work into the gap between tenancies. Our main landlord and letting agent decorating page covers how we run rental jobs in general. For the price side, see our cost guide, and for other services in the village, see the Harpole page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
