Dean decorates hallways, staircases and landings in Southfields, about 4 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Most stairs here are straight single flights in terraces and semis, so the work is planned around tight landings, stairwell cracks in the timber-frame houses and finishes that can be wiped down.
Straight flights and short landings
Terraces and semis here usually have a narrow single flight from the front hall to a small landing, often open-plan to the room below. It is a simpler shape than a dog-leg Victorian stair, but there is far less room to stand a platform. On the landing there is often only a door’s width between the top step and the bathroom, so a full stair tower has nowhere to go. We use an adjustable stair ladder on the treads with a short staging board to the landing, or a low step platform where the head height allows. That reaches the tall wall above the flight without anything resting on the banister or the spindles.
In the smaller terraces on Barley Hill Road, where the EPC register lists homes of only 44 to 45 square metres, the hallway is barely a passage. There, the stair wall, the ceiling and the front door are done as one short, careful sequence so the stairs only need to be closed for brief spells. In the terraced bungalows on the same road there are no stairs at all, and the hall work is simply walls, ceiling and a run of doors.
Cracks that come back on the stairwell wall
On the Micklewell Lane and Brackenfield Square courts, EPCs list the houses as timber frame. Their stairwell is usually the tallest single wall in the house, which makes it the place where seasonal movement shows most: fine cracks along the plasterboard joints, at the ceiling line and in the corner where the stair wall meets the landing. Filling these with hard powder filler only lasts until the next change of season. We open them up, bridge the longer ones with scrim tape, use a flexible filler and finish the internal corners with a decorators’ caulk. On the cavity-wall semis at Gallery Close and Ludlow Close the cracks are usually old settlement and only need standard filling.
Scuffs, bikes and a wipeable finish
In a family house the stair and hall take the hardest wear of any space: scooter handlebars against the wall, school bags dragged up the stairs, hands on the wall at the turn of the landing. For that we suggest a durable, washable matt or eggshell emulsion on the walls and a hard-wearing satin on the handrail, spindles and stair stringers. A darker colour or a painted dado on the lower part of the wall in the hall will hide marks between redecorations. More detail on finishes and access equipment is on the main hallway, stairs and landing decorating page.
Getting equipment to a front door on a footpath
Many Southfields front doors open onto pedestrian squares rather than a road: Brackenfield Square, Barnhill Square, Foxwell Square and Moorfield Square among them. A stair ladder, boards and dust sheets have to be walked in from wherever the van can park, so we bring in only what the stairwell needs and set everything up inside on the first morning. Leaving the kit in the hall overnight, folded flat against the wall, saves carrying it back across the square each day.
Because the stairs are the only way up, we agree with you which hours the flight will be blocked, and we keep the treads clear and dry at the end of each day. For more on the area itself see our Southfields area page, and for how quotes are put together, the cost guide.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
