DH Painter & Decorator decorates rented homes in Little Billing, NN3, for landlords and letting agents, about 3.2 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Dean focuses on fast, durable repaints between tenancies.
Where letting work is likely in Little Billing
We have no published figures for how many homes in Little Billing are let, and we won’t guess. What we can say is where rental work is most likely to be. Most of the village is the later suburban housing around the old core: Valley Road and its Crescent, Fishponds Road, and closes such as Codlin Close, Pippin Lane and Blossom Way. These are the properties a landlord or agent would most often ask us to turn round between tenants. Because they sit outside any conservation area or Article 4 direction, a landlord is free to choose colours and finishes purely on durability and cost of upkeep.
How we handle check-out reports, neutral colours and durable finishes is on our main landlord and letting agent decorating page. Below are the points specific to letting a house here.
What slows down a turnaround here
Void periods cost money, so on a let property the decorating has to fit a fixed window. In Little Billing a few local factors affect how quickly we can work.
- Parking on closes and cul-de-sacs. The van stays on the street and dust sheets, steps and tins are walked to the door. If the agent can tell us about any parking restrictions or a free driveway, we can arrange the start day around it.
- Damp, shaded rear rooms. Houses whose gardens back onto the brook corridor and pocket park woodland can have cold, tree-shaded back bedrooms and kitchens. Mould spots and condensation stains there need a fungicidal wash and a stain-blocking primer before the topcoat, or they come back within weeks of a new tenancy. External back doors and window frames on that side also tend to go green and need cleaning before they are painted.
- Drying time in winter. Those same rooms dry slowly, which matters when a new tenant moves in the following day. We use quick-drying, low-odour products and plan coats so the property is ready on time.
Finishes that cope with the next tenancy
For tenanted houses we usually suggest one wipeable neutral throughout, in a scrubbable matt or soft sheen. That makes touching up after a check-out simple and keeps colour matching straightforward. Woodwork in a water-based satin stays white rather than yellowing in the darker rooms. We keep a note of the exact colours and products used on each property, so the agent can order a matching tin for small touch-ups mid-tenancy without guesswork. In kitchens and bathrooms on the shaded, brook-facing side we use a moisture- and mould-resistant paint, because those are the rooms a check-out report most often flags.
If you own one of the listed cottages on Church Lane or Orchard Hill and let it, the rules are different. Those homes are coursed rubble with lime plaster, and they need breathable paints, not the standard rental emulsion. Changing their character can also need listed building consent. We will explain the difference when we quote.
Working with agents
We can collect keys from the agent, work from the check-out report, and send photographs of the finished rooms so the property can go back on the market without a separate visit. We cover Little Billing from our Northampton base. For background on the village see our Little Billing area page, and for the factors behind a quote see the painter and decorator cost guide.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
