DH Painter & Decorator takes on commercial painting in Hartwell, a village about 6.5 miles south of Northampton. The premises here are small: a village shop, the Rose and Crown, the Hartwell Club, the community centre and the primary school. Dean plans each job around how the building is used so it can keep operating.
A village of small premises
Hartwell has no business park or parade of shops. The commercial buildings it does have are the village shop, the Rose and Crown public house, the Hartwell Club, the community centre that opened in 1991, and Hartwell CofE Primary School, which opened in 1962 and was extended in 1995-6. The village once had sawmills, a timber and coal merchant and an engineering firm, but there is no clear record of which of these still trade, so any workshop or yard is quoted when we see it.
Jobs on buildings of this size are rarely large, but they do need planning. A pub, a club and a shop all have customers coming in while the work goes on, and a school or community hall has its own timetable of users.
Pubs and clubs: keeping the bar open
For the Rose and Crown or the Hartwell Club, the biggest worry is closing up for the decorators. Usually that isn’t needed. We split the building into sections, for example the lounge, then the bar, then the toilets and corridors, and work on whichever section is closed or quietest while the rest stays open. Fast-drying, low-odour water-based paints mean a room can be back in use soon after the last coat. Bar areas, toilets and corridors get scrubbable finishes, because they are cleaned hard every day.
Outside, signboards, window frames and entrance doors on the main road take the weather. Ladder work beside the road through the village needs footing and traffic awareness, so we plan exterior sections for quieter parts of the day and keep the pavement clear.
The school and community buildings
The primary school is a single-storey brick building with a flat roof, and the community centre is a 1990s building. Both are straightforward to paint, but they are used by children and local groups, so the timetable matters more than the paint. School decorating is usually booked for the holidays by agreement with the school, and community rooms are done around the booking diary. We use low-odour products, keep wet areas cordoned off, and store all materials securely. Corridors and classrooms in these buildings get durable, washable paints that can be cleaned without wearing through.
Older buildings and mixed surfaces
Some of the village’s non-residential buildings are older and mix materials on a single elevation. The Methodist chapel on Hartwell Green, rebuilt in 1889, pairs brick walls with stone quoins, while older buildings in the parish combine stone, brick, timber porches and projecting wood eaves. Each of those surfaces needs its own primer and paint system. Limestone in particular should get a breathable mineral or lime-compatible finish, not a standard acrylic masonry paint, which traps damp in soft stone. With twelve listed buildings in the parish, any listed premises keeps its existing colours and paint system unless the council has granted consent for a change.
Shade, damp and timing
Hartwell sits next to Salcey Forest, and buildings on that side get shade and damp air. External woodwork and render facing the trees often carry algae and need a fungicidal wash before painting, so we book exterior work for the warmer, drier months. Inside, work can go ahead year round.
Our commercial painting page explains how we plan business jobs in more detail. DH Painter & Decorator is fully insured, and can provide documents for a committee, governors or a pub owner on request. For more about the village itself, see the Hartwell area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
