DH Painter & Decorator offers decorative paint finishes in Semilong (NN2), a few minutes north of Northampton town centre. In this neighbourhood that mostly means careful work on surviving period features, such as cornices, ceiling roses, fireplaces and hall details, in the bigger terraces around St Pauls Road and Barrack Road.
Where decorative work fits in Semilong
We will be straightforward: decorative finishes are a small part of the decorating that Semilong houses need. Most of the neighbourhood is compact two- and three-bedroom terraces, many of them let as HMOs or private rentals, where durable flat colour is the right answer and a faux finish would be scuffed within a tenancy. Where decorative work does make sense is in the larger houses. St Pauls Road has some three-storey terraces, and the narrow-fronted houses facing Barrack Road and Kingsthorpe Road, built between about 1820 and 1913, include stone ranges with ornamental detail such as St Paul’s Terrace on Kingsthorpe Road. Those are the homes where original plasterwork, fireplaces and hall details are most likely to have survived.
Cornices and ceiling roses under decades of paint
Period plaster mouldings in older houses have often been painted over many times, sometimes with distemper at the bottom of the layers. The sharp edges of a cornice or the petals of a rose slowly fill in until they look soft and blurred. Before any picking out, we judge whether the detail is still crisp enough to paint, or whether clogged areas need careful cleaning back first. Distemper in particular will not take modern emulsion well and has to be washed off or sealed, otherwise the new coat can flake.
Picking out then means painting the moulding in a contrast colour or a different sheen from the ceiling and walls, with a fine brush along every edge. Done well, it draws the eye up in a tall front room. Done badly, it shows every wobble, so it is slow, patient work. A common approach in these houses is a soft off-white on the ceiling, a slightly deeper tone on the cornice and a third, stronger shade on the wall below a picture rail.
Fireplaces, chimney breasts and the hall
Front and back rooms in terraces of this age were built around chimney breasts, and where an original timber or cast-iron surround survives it repays careful work. A painted timber surround can be brought back with a fresh eggshell or a subtle two-tone that picks out its mouldings; cast iron is degreased and finished with a heat-tolerant product suitable for decorative use. The breast above can become a feature wall in a deeper colour, which suits the proportions of a Victorian room better than a single accent wall elsewhere.
Halls in the larger houses sometimes keep dado rails, panelled doors and turned spindles. A darker painted lower section below the dado with a lighter upper wall is a practical, period-appropriate scheme in a hall that takes knocks, and it hides scuffs far better than a single pale colour from floor to ceiling. Lower hall walls near cellar doors need a moisture check first, because a decorative scheme is wasted on a wall that is still damp.
Outside: decoration that should stay as it is
On the Barrack Road edge, decoration on the outside of buildings is largely about leaving things alone. The 1884 St Paul’s Terrace carries ornamental bargeboards and a frieze at the eaves; those timbers are painted; the squared rubble and ashlar walls around them are bare stone and should stay that way. Along Marriott Street, the painted stone dressings round doors and windows count as part of the conservation area’s character, so they go back in their existing colours. A creative new colour there could need council permission under the Article 4 direction.
- Inside: cornices, roses, picture rails, dados, fireplace surrounds, panelled doors
- Outside: bargeboards and timber details repainted to match, bare stone left bare
- Let rooms: simple, durable colour usually serves better than effects
The range of effects and detailing we offer is described on the decorative finishes service page, and Dean can help choose a scheme through our colour and finish advice. Everything else we cover locally is on the Semilong area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
