DH Painter & Decorator repaints shopfronts in Headlands, NN3, about 2.2 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. The district has a handful of takeaway units on Longland Road and Bushland Road plus the Headland pub, and Dean plans each job around its trading pattern.
A residential suburb with a few frontages
Headlands has no high street, no shopping parade in the usual sense and no business park. Its commercial premises are a few small takeaway units, such as the fish bar at 70a Longland Road and the chip shop at No. 16 Bushland Road, and the Headland pub on the corner of Longland Road and Broadway East. Supermarket shopping happens outside the district. So shopfront painting here is about a small number of individual units set among houses, and that affects how the work is done: neighbours live next door, parking outside is shared with residents, and a takeaway’s customers often arrive on foot from the surrounding roads.
Grease comes first
A food business puts a film of cooking grease and smoke onto its own frontage over time, especially around the door, the fascia above it and anywhere close to an extract outlet. Paint will not hold on that film. Before any sanding we wash the frontage down with a degreaser, rinse it, and let it dry fully, then check with a test patch that the surface is taking paint. Skipping that step is the usual reason a takeaway fascia starts peeling within a season. Typical surfaces on these units include:
- the timber or composite fascia board carrying the sign
- window frames and the door, which take the most handling
- the stallriser below the window, splashed by pavement grime
- any rendered or painted brick around the unit
Takeaway frontages also take hard daily wear at hand height. Delivery riders, queuing customers and bags knocking the door frame all chip paint at the same few points, so we use a hard-wearing exterior finish on the door and frame and build up extra coats where hands land. Signwriting, vinyl lettering and illuminated signs are separate trades. We paint around existing signage or prepare the board for your signmaker, whichever you need.
The Headland pub
The Headland at 16 Longland Road is a brick-built estate pub from the 1960s, owned freehold by Wells & Co. A pub of that kind has a larger painted area than a takeaway: entrance doors, window frames, fascias and any external woodwork or railings around the forecourt. Licensed premises often have their own rules from the owning company on colours and contractors, so for a pub repaint we would expect to agree the specification with whoever manages the building before quoting. The work can be divided so that the entrance is never closed while the pub is open.
Working around a takeaway’s hours
Most takeaways open for lunch, evenings or both, and many have a closed day. That leaves daytime windows when the unit is shut and we can work without customers passing the wet paint. We plan the messy stages, degreasing and sanding, for those quiet periods and keep the door area for last so it is dry before service. Wet paint signs go up wherever a hand might touch. Exterior paint still needs dry weather, so we would rather move a day than paint into rain. Because these units sit among homes on Longland Road and Bushland Road, we also keep noise and van parking considerate for the residents either side.
Our main shopfront painting page explains products and preparation in more depth, and our Headlands page covers the wider area. For anything larger, such as school or college buildings around Booth Lane, see our commercial painting service.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
