DH Painter & Decorator takes on commercial painting in St Crispin, the NN5 neighbourhood in Upton parish about 2.6 miles west of Northampton town centre. There is no business park here, so the work centres on St Crispin Retail Village, community buildings and the communal parts of apartment blocks.
What commercial work looks like in a mainly residential neighbourhood
St Crispin is overwhelmingly residential, so it would be misleading to describe it as a commercial district. It has no business park or industrial estate. What it does have is a short list of non-domestic buildings and shared spaces that still need maintaining:
- the shop units at St Crispin Retail Village;
- St Crispin’s Community Centre, which has a café and hall;
- St Crispins Social Club on Berrywood Road;
- the entrances, stairs and corridors of apartment blocks run by managing agents.
Each of those has a different owner, a different pattern of use and a different idea of when work can happen. Our commercial painting page covers how we plan business jobs in general; here is how it applies locally.
Small retail units at St Crispin Retail Village
Neighbourhood shops depend on staying open, and they serve people who walk past every day, so tired paint gets noticed. Inside, the work is usually walls, ceilings, stockroom and staff areas, finished in hard-wearing paints that can be washed. Outside, it might be the fascia, door and frames. Exterior shop paint is covered in more detail on our shopfront painting page.
We break the work into sections where possible, so part of a unit stays usable, and agree with the owner which days suit the business before booking in. Low-odour water-based paints mean customers are not met by solvent fumes. Because the retail village serves a residential neighbourhood, noisier preparation such as sanding is timed away from early mornings and evenings.
Community and club buildings
The £2.2m community centre on St Crispin Drive serves café customers, hall users and people using its four football pitches and baseball diamond, often with muddy boots. Halls and corridors in that kind of building need tough, scrubbable wall finishes, and doors and frames that can take knocks. Bookings matter as much as the paint: we work around the events calendar the building’s managers give us, rather than closing the whole place.
Outside, community buildings next to open parkland pick up green algae and mud splash on lower walls and doors, especially on shaded sides. Before repainting any exterior timber or rendered panels, we wash those areas down with a fungicidal cleaner so the new coat bonds to a clean surface rather than to growth that will lift it within a season.
The same thinking applies to the social club on Berrywood Road. Club rooms need a finish that copes with spills and cleaning, applied when the rooms are not in use.
Shared areas in managed apartment blocks
Apartment blocks such as St Georges House have communal halls and stairwells that fall to a managing agent rather than individual owners. Residents use these areas all day, so the job is planned floor by floor with clear signage, protected floors and doors, and a route kept open at all times. Communal parking courts are shared too, so overspray and dust are kept well away from residents’ cars.
The wider St Crispin site is a conservation area, and its historic buildings, including the Grade II listed chapel and Connolly Lodge, need consent for exterior changes. If a commercial or communal building you manage is one of those, we will raise it before any work is agreed. See the St Crispin area page for other services we offer here.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
