Dean gives colour and finish advice as part of decorating jobs in Southfields, NN3, a planned estate on the town's north-eastern rim some 4 miles from the centre. There is no conservation area here, so the choice is yours inside and out; the usual question is how to keep small, shaded rooms from feeling dark.
No conservation area means the choice is genuinely open
Southfields has no conservation area, and no listed buildings are recorded around it on OpenStreetMap. That means no Article 4 directions controlling what colour a front door, fascia or panel of cladding can be. On a Southfields close, the person who decides the colour of a door or fascia is the owner, not a planning officer.
There is one group to check first. About 2.7% of homes near Gallery Close are shared ownership, against under 1% regionally. A shared-ownership lease can include terms on exterior alterations, so if you part-own your home with a housing provider, ask them before changing the outside colour. Inside, the decision is yours.
Light through leaves: the back rooms that face the woodland belts
The mature broadleaved belts at Pine Ridge, Brittons Drive, Watermeadow Drive and along Osmund Drive back onto many Southfields gardens. From late spring to autumn, light reaching the back rooms has passed through a canopy of leaves. It arrives weaker and with a green cast, and a north-facing room behind a tree belt gets the least of it.
A few things help in those rooms:
- Choose a white or off-white with a warm undertone. A cool, grey-based white goes flat and slightly green in leaf-filtered light.
- Avoid greens and blue-greens with a grey base on the window wall. The light is already adding green.
- Test your sample on the darkest wall, not the one beside the window, and look at it in the morning and late afternoon.
- In winter, when the trees are bare, the same room will look brighter and cooler. Check your sample in both seasons if you can, or allow for the change.
Front rooms facing an open close or square often get far more light than the back of the same house, so one colour rarely suits both ends of a through room. The general principles of light direction and undertone are explained on our main colour and finish advice page.
Keeping a small house coherent
Many Southfields homes are compact. The register lists small terraces of about 44-45 sq m and terraced bungalows of about 34 sq m on Barley Hill Road. In a house that size you can see three or four rooms from one spot, and a different strong colour in each makes the space feel broken up. A workable approach is one base colour for the hall, stair and landing, with the rooms off it in shades from the same family, and a stronger colour kept for one wall or one room.
Sheen matters as much as colour in small spaces. A flat matt hides the slight unevenness of plasterboard walls but marks more easily. A durable matt or soft sheen is a sensible compromise on the open-plan stairwells, and satin rather than gloss on doors and skirtings keeps the woodwork from glaring in a narrow hall.
Outside: brick, white uPVC and timber cladding
Most Southfields houses are fair-faced brick with uPVC double glazing, and the brick should be left bare. That means the colours you can change outside are the front door, any timber fascias that have not been replaced, and the timber or tile-hung cladding panels on the timber-frame terraces such as those on Micklewell Lane and Brackenfield Square.
| Surface | What to weigh up |
|---|---|
| Front door | Pick from the brick’s own tones or a deliberate contrast; white uPVC frames sit well with most mid and deep shades |
| Timber cladding panels | Microporous wood finishes come in a narrower range than masonry paint; darker shades absorb more heat and move the timber more |
| Fascias and bargeboards | White or off-white matches uPVC windows; a darker colour will show leaf staining from nearby trees less |
The pedestrian squares are shared spaces, and a run of terraced doors facing one path is seen as a group. You are free to choose, but it is worth looking at the whole row before settling on a colour. The Southfields area page covers the exterior work we take on around the estate.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
