Dean decorates hallways, staircases and landings in Weedon Bec, which sits 8 miles west of Northampton town centre. In the old cottages the challenge is a narrow, steep stair with very little room for equipment, while the estate houses have taller stairwells that need a proper platform.
Cottage stairs with no room to spare
Upper and Lower Weedon grew from farming settlements, and the oldest houses on Queen Street, Church Street, Oak Street and West Street are two-storey cottages of the late 17th and 18th centuries. Staircases in houses like these were fitted into whatever space was left: often steep, sometimes winding, frequently boxed in between two walls with a low ceiling at the turn. A standard stair ladder will not always stand on treads that shallow.
For these we use compact, adjustable platforms and short staging that can be set up in a space barely wider than the stair itself. We work from the top down, decorating the landing ceiling and the upper wall first, then moving the platform down as we go so the stairs can still be used in the evening. Handrails and spindles are masked or wrapped while the walls are done, then painted last.
The walls in a stone cottage stairwell are usually uneven and may be lime plaster. If they are, a breathable emulsion is the sensible finish, and filling is kept light so the wall keeps its shape. Hairline cracks where an old timber stair meets the wall are normal in houses of this age and are filled with a flexible product rather than hard filler that will crack again.
Getting the kit to your front door
The old centre was never laid out for vans: pavements are barely there on streets such as West Street, and New Street and Farthingstone Road have known parking pressure. A stairwell job needs platforms, boards and dust sheets carried in, so we plan the unloading before the first day. We drive over from Northampton in a small van, which also gets under the canal and railway viaducts at the east entrance to the village without trouble. We try to unload in one go and keep the doorway clear for you and your neighbours.
Hallways on the ground floor of the flood streets
In a cottage the front door often opens straight into the hall or the main room, so the hallway is one of the first places surface water reaches. If your house was among those in the village centre affected in November 2024 or March 2025, the lower part of the hall wall may have been stripped and replastered. We let new plaster dry fully, seal it with a mist coat and then decorate the whole hall in one finish so the repaired band does not show. A scrubbable matt or a durable eggshell suits a hallway that takes boots, pushchairs and dogs.
Taller stairwells on the estates
Estate houses, from Croft Way and Holm Close to Cavalry Fields and Harmans Chase, typically have straight or quarter-turn stairs, often with a tall wall rising the full height of the house. Here the issue is height rather than width. A combination ladder and a stair platform give a stable base over the drop, and we never balance a ladder on a tread or a board on the banister. The full method, from access to the order of work, is on our main hallway, stairs and landing decorating page.
| House type in Weedon | Typical stair | How we reach it |
|---|---|---|
| Stone cottage, Upper or Lower Weedon | Steep, narrow, often boxed in | Compact platform, short staging, top-down order |
| Turnpike terrace, High Street or South Street | Often a straight flight between party walls | Stair ladder and a single board |
| 20th-century and newer estate home | Open stairwell, full-height wall | Combination ladder with stair platform |
The banisters, spindles and newel posts usually take longer than the walls. If they carry many old coats, we sand them back to a smooth key rather than adding more layers. Our Weedon Bec area page has more on the village’s houses.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
