Dean paints the inside of houses and flats across Wellingborough, about 9.7 miles north-east of Northampton town centre, covering the NN8 and NN9 postcodes. The preparation and paint system change from street to street, because the town runs from 18th-century town houses to homes still being built at Glenvale Park.
Four ages of room in one town
Painting a room in Wellingborough can mean almost anything, because the town’s interiors were built over several centuries. A quote for the sitting room of a Georgian town house on London Road and one for a bedroom at Stanton Cross start from very different surfaces, so we price each after seeing it.
| Where | What the rooms are like | What that means for the paintwork |
|---|---|---|
| Broad Green, London Road, Sheep Street, Silver Street | Georgian and early 19th-century town houses with tall rooms | More cutting in at height, older plaster that can be soft or patched, and joinery with many coats already on it |
| Park Road, Havelock Street, Oxford Street, Moffat Terrace | Victorian and Edwardian terraces and villas, some with canted bays | Bay window reveals and sash boxes to prepare, and ceilings that need care where the lath has moved |
| Hemmingwell, Queensway, Kingsway | 1960s and 70s homes, more compact | Quicker to set up in, so effort goes into surface repair and a hard-wearing finish for busy family rooms |
| Stanton Cross, Glenvale Park, Park Farm | New builds | Builder’s contract matt to replace with something washable, once the plaster has settled |
The way we choose primers, fillers and finishes for each surface is explained on our main interior painting page. Here we stick to what is particular to Wellingborough.
Shoe factory conversions and flats over the shops
The boot and shoe trade left Wellingborough with factory buildings in Rock Street, Great Park Street and Alma Street, and the council’s conservation appraisal notes that some former factories have been turned into flats. Inside these, the walls you paint can be a mixture of new partitions and original structure. Old brick or plaster walls that have been painted over in the past may hold on to grime and need a stain-blocking primer before a light colour will cover evenly.
Above the town-centre shops, the same appraisal mentions buildings where the landlord may be absent and upkeep, paintwork included, has slipped. When a flat like that is being brought back into use, the job usually includes cleaning down nicotine or grease, filling long-neglected cracks and repainting woodwork that has gone bare.
Damp near the Nene, the Ise and Swanspool Brook
Wellingborough sits on rising ground above the River Nene flood plain, with the Ise to the east and Swanspool Brook running through the town. Houses on the lower ground near these watercourses can show damp at the bottom of their walls. Painting over that hides it for a few weeks at most before the emulsion blisters or a tide mark comes back through.
So for ground-floor rooms in those spots, we check the walls with a moisture meter before quoting. If the reading is high, we tell you, and the cause needs sorting first. When the wall is dry, a breathable emulsion is often the safer choice on older solid walls, rather than a vinyl finish that holds moisture in.
Parking and getting in around the old centre
Many of the older houses in the town centre conservation area front straight onto the pavement, and the conservation appraisal discourages taking down boundary walls to make parking spaces. In practice that means most of these homes rely on the street. Some sit off narrow lanes such as Salem Lane, Pebble Lane or Buckwell End, where a van cannot stop outside.
For interior work this mostly affects the first and last half hour of the day. We plan the drop-off of dust sheets, steps and paint, then keep everything inside the house for the length of the job rather than going back and forth to the van. On a whole-house repaint we usually work from the top floor down, so the hall and stairs are finished last and don’t get marked by the rest of the work.
For a general picture of how Dean works across the town’s different areas, see our Wellingborough area page. If you are comparing quotes, our guide to choosing a painter and decorator lists the questions to ask.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
