DH Painter & Decorator repaints the outside of homes in Little Houghton, the NN7 village on the Nene valley ridge about 3.1 miles east of Northampton town centre. On the old stone cottages that means joinery, doors and outbuildings rather than walls, and on the post-war closes it covers the usual woodwork and rooflines. Dean quotes after a visit.
Stone you leave alone, timber you look after
Walk the four roads that make up Little Houghton (Bedford Road, Station Road, Lodge Road and Meadow Lane) and most of what you see is bare coursed rubble: ironstone and limestone, often laid in alternating bands so the fronts look striped. Those walls were built to be seen as stone, and the conservation area appraisal published in 2015 lists painting among the small permitted changes that wear away the character of the village. So an exterior job here rarely involves the walls at all. The paintwork that matters is the joinery set into them: small timber casements and sashes under timber lintels, simple timber doors that open straight onto the street, and the doors and frames of barns and outbuildings.
That shifts the effort. A cottage front in Little Houghton might only have three or four windows and a door, but each one is old timber carrying generations of paint, so most of the time goes on scraping back loose layers, treating soft spots, filling, and then building up a microporous or linseed-oil based system that lets the wood breathe. Old coatings on joinery this age are treated as possibly containing lead, so we wet-abrade rather than dry-sand. The appraisal wants surviving traditional doors protected, which is a good reason to repaint rather than replace.
Fronts that meet the pavement
Many cottages are built tight to the road edge, and the appraisal notes that few homes have drives, so cars sit on the street and on the verges. For us that means ladders stand on a public footway, sometimes beside the A428 where it passes through the village centre. We keep the ladder footprint small, cone off while someone is working, and avoid leaving equipment standing. Overhead wires run along some streets, which is checked before any ladder goes up. Where the van cannot stop outside, materials come in small loads and waste goes out the same way, so it helps to agree a parking spot with neighbours in advance.
Thatch, climbers and the open valley side
A few thatched roofs survive, including terraces on the north side of Lodge Road and two cottages on Meadow Lane. Under thatch we do not use heat guns or any flame to strip paint from windows, eaves timbers or bargeboards; it is scraper, chemical stripper and patience instead. Climbing plants are common on cottage walls, so we agree with you how far they can be tied back before work starts and clear any growth from frames so the paint has a clean surface.
The village sits on the southern ridge of the Nene valley, and the land west of Bedford Road falls away to open views. West and north-facing joinery takes the weather straight off that open ground and usually needs repainting sooner than the sheltered side. Where mature trees shade a front, drying slows and we allow for it between coats. Our guide to the right time of year for outside painting explains why late spring to early autumn suits work like this.
Colour, consent and the post-war closes
The conservation area contains 38 listed buildings, among them cottages on Bedford Road, Lodge Road and Meadow Lane. On a listed house, a change of colour or finish can need listed building consent, and for unlisted homes inside the conservation area we suggest checking a new colour with West Northamptonshire Council’s heritage officers first. Like-for-like repainting in muted, traditional colours that sit with the ironstone and the red pantile roofs is usually the straightforward route.
Nursery Close and parts of Home Acre fall outside the conservation area, and the houses there, along with those on Lodge Close, are post-war infill with softwood joinery, fascias and in some cases uPVC. Their exterior work is more conventional, and the general method is covered on our main exterior painting page. For an overview of how we handle the rest of the village, see the Little Houghton area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
