DH Painter & Decorator paints the outside of houses in St David's, NN2, about 1.9 miles north of Northampton town centre. Dean handles masonry, front doors, timber fascias and garden woodwork on the estate's interwar terraces, post-war semis and bungalows, and works with landlords and managing agents on the flat blocks.
Three building periods on one estate
Walk from Hastings Road to Drayton Walk and you pass three building periods. The core interwar streets east of Kingsthorpe village, Rosedale and Langdale Roads among them, mostly date to 1939 by EPC age band, and St Davids Road to around 1914. Eastern Avenue North and South, Bondfield Avenue, Holdenby Road and Helmdon Road filled in during the 1950s with semis, terraces and semi-detached bungalows. Newnham Road and Drayton Walk came last, in the 1970s, and are mostly flats.
Each period gives a different outside job:
- Interwar terraces: a narrow front elevation, a front door, a sill or two and whatever timber is left at the eaves. Mid-terraces make up 37 of the 59 houses sampled on Hastings Road.
- 1950s semis and bungalows: more wall per house, a side elevation, often a side gate and a longer garden fence, and low eaves on the bungalows.
- 1970s flats: communal entrance doors, stair rails and shared boundary features, normally arranged through whoever manages the block.
What there is to paint once the windows are uPVC
Many houses on these estate streets now have uPVC windows, so an exterior repaint in St David’s is rarely a sash-and-frame job. The work tends to centre on the front door and its frame, any timber fascias and bargeboards that survived, masonry where the walls have been painted or rendered before, and the garden woodwork and metal gates around the plot. Dean walks round the house before quoting to list which of those you actually have.
Where walls are rendered or pebbledashed, the masonry side is covered in more detail on our render and masonry painting page. For the full outline of how we prepare and paint outside surfaces, see the main exterior painting service.
Pavement at the front, the house at the back
A mid-terrace on Rosedale Road or Hastings Road is easy at the front: ladders go up from the pavement, and the job is planned so the footway stays passable. The back is another matter. Behind these terraces the route in is a shared passage where there is one; where there is not, ladders travel through the house, and we book that part for a single agreed day so you are not living around a ladder for a week.
Parking needs planning too. Terraced roads in St David’s rely on kerbside spaces, and garages here sit mainly in separate lock-up rows rather than beside each house. We arrange van access before the start date rather than circling on the morning.
Picking a colour with no heritage rules
No conservation area covers St David’s. The nearest ones, around the old Kingsthorpe village and along Kingsthorpe High Street and Manor Road, lie to the west. That means a front door colour or a painted wall here does not need to follow a council appraisal, which is not the case a few streets away. On a terrace it is still worth thinking about how your front will sit next to the neighbours’ either side, especially where several houses share one continuous elevation.
Timing matters more than rules here. Exterior paint needs dry surfaces and mild temperatures, and our guide to timing outdoor painting in the UK explains the window. For everything else we do in the area, see our St David’s area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
