DH Painter & Decorator paints the outside of homes in Lings, the NN3 neighbourhood of courts and closes off Lings Way, about 3.3 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Dean quotes after a walk round the house, because what needs painting on these late-20th-century homes varies a lot from one court to the next.
What is still paintable on a Lings estate house
Most of the terraced, end-of-terrace and semi-detached homes in courts such as Hangerfield Court, Spenfield Court, West Priors Court and Poppyfield Court were built during Northampton’s New Town expansion to the east, and current listings describe them with uPVC double glazing. That takes the window frames, usually the biggest exterior job on an older house, off the list. What is left is a shorter set of surfaces that each fail in their own way:
- Front doors and frames where they are still timber, which take daily knocks and weather on the court-facing side.
- Garage doors, as many Lings homes come with a single or tandem garage. Steel and timber up-and-over doors need different primers.
- Timber fascias, soffits and bargeboards on houses where the roofline has never been replaced with plastic.
- Close-boarded fences and side gates between tightly packed court gardens.
- Rendered panels, porches and garden walls, which turn up on some houses but are far from universal here.
On low-rise court houses this is usually ladder work rather than a scaffold job. The short list also means the preparation on each item matters more, since there are no large wall areas for small flaws to hide among.
Houses with Lings Wood at the bottom of the garden
Lings Wood Local Nature Reserve sits in the middle of the neighbourhood, roughly 19 to 20 hectares of planted chestnut, fir and larch with younger native trees coming through, plus ponds and damp, shaded margins. For the homes that back onto it, that means shade, leaf litter and a damp edge to the garden that keeps fences, sills and north-facing walls wet for longer after rain.
Paint applied over green algae lifts within a season, so on these houses we build an extra stage into the job. Affected surfaces get a fungicidal wash, which is left to work before the dead growth is brushed and rinsed off, and then the surface has to dry out properly. On a shaded elevation by the wood that drying can take noticeably longer than on the open front of the same house. We would sooner leave a gap of a day than paint onto timber that still holds moisture. Our guide to the exterior painting season explains why shaded walls are usually left until the warmer, drier months.
Courts, turning heads and carrying ladders
Lings was laid out as courts and cul-de-sacs off Lings Way, and that shapes how an outside job runs. Many homes have a driveway or off-road space, so the van can often park at the property. Where it cannot, ladders, dust sheets and tins are carried in from wherever there is room, and we keep the turning head clear for neighbours and bin lorries. Roads around the reserve, such as Prentice Court, also take parking from visitors to the wood, because the reserve has no car park of its own. We plan deliveries and the order of work around that before the first day.
Picking exterior colours without conservation rules
Lings sits outside any conservation area and has no Article 4 direction on record, so you are generally free to change the colour of a front door, garage door or fence. Check your deeds for any estate covenant before going bold. On a terrace, a door colour that sits comfortably beside the neighbours tends to age better than one that fights them, and we are happy to bring sample cards to the house.
For the general method, products and preparation we use, see our main exterior painting service. Indoor work and the other services we offer locally are listed on the Lings area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
