DH Painter & Decorator paints shopfronts, frames and fascias at Pineham's NN4 neighbourhood centre on the south-western edge of town. The centre opened with a Co-op and Blossom Tree Day Nursery and has modern frames that need specialist primers rather than traditional gloss.
A modern centre, not a Victorian parade
Pineham has no traditional high street. Its shops are in one small neighbourhood centre: a 1.1-acre plot that Godwin Developments bought from Taylor Wimpey Homes in 2018 to build retail and nursery units. The first tenants were Midcounties Co-operative, with a 4,000 sq ft food store, and Blossom Tree Day Nursery, in 4,550 sq ft. Because the centre dates from around 2018 to 2019, its frontages are contemporary. You won’t find carved timber consoles, stallrisers in painted render or old sash shop windows here.
That means the work isn’t the traditional shopfront job of stripping and rebuilding layers of oil paint on timber. It’s about getting new paint to grip modern factory finishes. The wider trade process is on our main shopfront painting page.
Aluminium and powder-coated frames
Modern shop frames are usually aluminium, often powder-coated in the factory. Powder coating is tough, but after several years it can chalk, fade or get scratched near door handles and at trolley height. Ordinary paint brushed straight onto it will not hold. The sequence we follow is:
- Wash down to remove traffic film and grease, which builds up quickly near a busy road network.
- Lightly abrade the surface so the primer has something to key into.
- Apply an adhesion primer suited to aluminium or powder coat.
- Finish with a hard-wearing top coat in the matched or new colour.
Fascia panels and sign zones above the frames are handled the same way, with signage masked or taken down by the sign company first.
Working around a food store and a nursery
The two original tenants at the Pineham centre have very different needs. A convenience food store wants its entrance open throughout trading, with customers and deliveries going in and out. A day nursery has young children arriving and being collected at set times, and parents and staff need a clear, safe route through the door. Other units may have joined the centre since, each with its own opening hours and its own busy periods.
We plan around that rather than ask a business to close. Entrance frames are done in sections, so the door is always usable. Wet paint is signed and screened, and the dustiest prep is timed for when footfall is lowest. For a nursery frontage, we’d suggest low-odour products and scheduling work for a closure day or the period after the last collection, so no child is ever near wet paint or kit.
Parking and deliveries matter too. The centre serves a car-based estate off Upton Valley Way North, so we keep our van and access equipment clear of customer bays and delivery spaces, and agree with the store when a lorry is due before setting up near the loading area.
Brand colours and shared frontages
Many tenants in a neighbourhood centre are part of larger groups with set brand colours, and the landlord may also have rules on how the shared frontage looks. Before quoting, Dean will ask whether you have a brand colour reference and whether the landlord needs to approve the work. Pineham has no conservation area, so heritage rules don’t apply, but lease terms often do. If the inside of the unit needs work too, see our commercial painting service, or our Pineham area page for everything we cover locally.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
