DH Painter & Decorator decorates rental homes in Kings Heath, NN5, for landlords and letting agents; the estate is 1.7 miles from Northampton town centre. The estate was built as borough council housing in the 1950s, and its compact houses and flats suit a quick, hard-wearing repaint between tenancies.
Renting on a former council estate
Kings Heath was designed in 1950 as borough council housing for around 5,000 people. Since then, some houses have been sold into private ownership; sale records show houses on Medway Drive, Severn Drive and Avon Drive changing hands privately. We have not found a reliable figure for how many homes are now council-let, privately rented or owner-occupied, so we won’t guess. What matters for a landlord is that a privately let house here is often one of a run of identical 1950s houses, some of which are still council homes.
That has a practical side. If you own a house in a terrace, its exterior is yours to decorate, but the inside is where most of the wear between tenancies happens. If you are a leaseholder in one of the flats, any change to communal areas or the outside needs the freeholder or managing agent’s consent first.
A void repaint sized to the floor plan
The estate’s houses mostly keep their original post-war layout: a narrow hall and straight stair, one main living room, a kitchen and smaller bedrooms. That keeps a full between-tenancy repaint compact and predictable. A typical scope looks like this:
- Fill picture-hook holes, dents and cracks in every room, then sand flush.
- Wash down the kitchen and hall walls, which pick up the most grease and marks.
- Repaint walls and ceilings in one neutral colour throughout, so later touch-ups need one tin.
- Refresh skirtings, door frames and window boards in a satin that wipes clean.
- Stain-block any water marks or smoke staining before the emulsion goes on.
Many of these houses have seventy years of paint on the woodwork, so a few doors usually need more than a quick coat. We tell you at the viewing which rooms need full coats and which only need touching up. The rest of our approach to rental work, including how we report back to agents, is on our main landlord and letting agent decorating page.
Flats over the Park Square shops
Park Square’s shop units have flats over them. The flats sit behind a glass barrier, and their entrances share space with trading shops, so we agree in advance how materials will come in and where they will be stored without blocking the shops or the residents’ route. The square has been under community-led regeneration, with its walls repainted by volunteers in March 2026, which is a good reason to bring a tired flat up to the same standard.
Keys, access and turnaround
A void property is normally empty when we arrive, so the work can run room by room without moving furniture. Where the house sits off a path rather than a road, we confirm parking and the carry when we collect keys. Agents can give us a key-safe code or arrange collection from the office; either works. Once finished, we send dated photographs of each room so the condition at the start of the new tenancy is on record, which helps with the inventory and any later deposit discussion. If we find damp, failed plaster or rotten timber while preparing, we report it with photos before carrying on, rather than painting over a problem the next tenant will notice within weeks. For how rental repaints are priced, our cost guide sets out what affects a quote. More on the area is on our Kings Heath page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
