DH Painter & Decorator paints house exteriors in Queen's Park (NN2), the small residential district east of Kingsthorpe Road, 1.3 miles from the centre of Northampton. Dean covers bay fronts, timber windows, doors and painted dressings, and plans each job around on-street parking, limited rear access and the main road out front.
A short frontage with a lot of detail
Queen’s Park covers only about a quarter of a square kilometre, split down the middle by the A508 Kingsthorpe Road. The homes are on the east side, where the bay-fronted terraces of Balmoral Road, Edinburgh Road and Stanhope Road date from the late Victorian years into the early 1900s and gather around the Edwardian Holy Trinity church. Just to the south, on the approach along Kingsthorpe Road, the terraces rise to three storeys, with bays running from basement to ground floor and small front gardens behind low brick walls.
Most of these houses are red brick, so the paintwork is not spread across big wall areas. It is concentrated in a handful of features that take the weather: the bay, the windows, the front door and frame, the sills and the timber at the eaves. Plenty of houses now have uPVC double glazing, which shortens the list. Where the original timber sashes survive, they are usually the largest single part of the job.
| Surface | Where it turns up | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Four-pane timber sashes | Older terraces on the Kingsthorpe Road approach | Ease each sash, prepare and prime bare timber, keep paint off cords and beads so the windows still slide |
| Bay detailing | Balmoral Road and Edinburgh Road fronts | Ladder or tower access over the bay roof, then prepare the timber or rendered mouldings |
| Painted stone sills, lintels and cornices | Townhouse terraces south of the district | Light scraping and fine filling so carved edges stay crisp |
| Front doors and frames | Every street | Wash, key, spot-prime, undercoat and a hard exterior gloss or satin |
If the bays or front walls are rendered rather than brick, our render and masonry painting page for Queen’s Park explains how those surfaces are handled.
Reaching the back of a mid-terrace
Some Balmoral Road houses have gated side access to the rear garden, which makes the back elevation straightforward. Many mid-terraces have no such route, so ladders, sheets, tins and tools have to go in through the front door and out through the kitchen. Before anything is carried, Dean lays protection from the front step to the back door and over stair ends and door frames along the way. Ladder sections are walked through upright and carried, never dragged. That planning takes time, and it is the reason a rear-elevation quote here can look different from one for a semi with a drive.
Parking is on the street outside, so kit is unloaded at the start of the day and kept tidy, leaving the pavement clear for neighbours.
Living beside the A508
Houses facing Kingsthorpe Road are only a front garden’s depth from a busy A-road, and the traffic leaves a greasy grey film on sills, door panels and the bottom of window frames. New paint will not grip that film, so washing down and rinsing is the first stage on any front elevation along the road, not an optional extra. The road also drops about 12 metres towards Kingsthorpe Hollow, so terraces step down the slope. Ladder feet are levelled on each step rather than wedged on whatever happens to be there.
Paint needs dry surfaces and reasonable temperatures to cure, and the timing matters more on a north-facing or shaded front. Our guide to when to book exterior painting in the UK covers the conditions.
Before you choose a new colour
The Barrack Road Conservation Area runs along Kingsthorpe Road to the south of Queen’s Park, down to Kingsthorpe Hollow. Since 2000 an Article 4 Direction there has required planning permission for work visible from the road on the front of houses, including replacing windows and doors and painting the exterior walls. If your house falls inside that boundary, check with West Northamptonshire Council before changing colour or painting brick that has never been painted. Repainting original sashes instead of replacing them also avoids an application, because replacement is one of the controlled changes.
The method we use for each surface is set out on our main exterior painting service page. Dean covers Queen’s Park from our Northampton base, and our Queen’s Park area page lists the other work we take on there. Call 07539 779 036 to book a free quote.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
