We decorate hallways, staircases and landings across Roade, about 5.4 miles south of Northampton on the A508. Older stone houses in the conservation core and the 20th-century homes west of the main road each need their own access set-up and choice of paint, and Dean plans both before work starts.
Two kinds of staircase in one village
Roade’s housing falls on either side of the A508 and the railway cutting, and its staircases fall along the same line. In the older eastern part, around High Street, Church End and Hartwell Road, stairs were fitted into buildings first built as rows of two-storey labourers’ cottages, often joined together later. Stairs in houses like these tend to be steep and enclosed, the walls are rarely straight, and the landing ceiling can be very low.
Some period staircases survive too. Tylecote House on Hartwell Road, a red-brick Arts and Crafts house of 1894-6 built for the local GP, still has its original staircase. Strings, spindles and handrails of that age are worth caring for, not burying under another layer of gloss.
West of the A508 the 20th-century houses have ordinary straight or quarter-turn stairs with a tall wall rising over the flight. Getting a safe working platform onto that wall decides how the whole job goes.
Working at height over a modern stairwell
In the closes such as Bailey Brooks Close or Hyde Close, the tricky surface is the head wall above the stairs. It is often the tallest wall in the house and you can’t reach it from a stepladder on the landing. Dean builds a stair platform with a combination ladder and boards resting on the treads, levelled so it doesn’t move. Once it’s up, the ceiling, the head wall and the top of the landing walls can be done in sequence, with no ladder leaning on fresh paint.
With Roade Primary School on Hartwell Road and Elizabeth Woodville School on the A508, plenty of these hallways can expect school bags and bikes every weekday. We usually suggest a scrubbable matt or a durable eggshell on the lower walls, so marks can be wiped off without leaving shiny patches. More detail on sequencing and materials is on the main hallway, stairs and landing decorating page.
Cottage stairwells with lime and stone behind them
In the stone cottages, the walls beside the stairs may be lime plaster on limestone rubble. Lime needs to breathe, so it shouldn’t be sealed under a vinyl emulsion. We use breathable mineral or clay-based emulsions there, and we leave or just clean any chamfered beams running across the hall, without glossing them. Hairline cracks in old lime are normal and get filled with a compatible soft filler. A hard gypsum filler would just crack out again.
Where a cottage stairwell is tight, a full platform may not fit. Then we use a short combination ladder with a stand-off and work in smaller sections, and the job takes a little longer. On listed houses, original balusters and handrails are cleaned and repainted like for like. We don’t strip them unless you have checked with the council that stripping is acceptable.
Keeping the house usable during the job
- We plan the order so the stairs can always be used. Spindles and handrail go first, treads and strings are done in halves, and the walls go last.
- Waterborne trim paints on spindles and banisters are dry to touch within hours, so the house isn’t closed off overnight.
- Ground-floor hallways in houses facing Northampton Road and Stratford Road pick up more road grime by the front door. Those walls are washed down before painting.
To see how hallways fit with the rest of the work we cover in the village, visit our Roade area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
