We paint house interiors in Westone, the NN3 residential district on the north side of the Wellingborough Road, about 2.6 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Most of the work here is in mature semis and detached family houses, many extended, and in homes being modernised after a change of owner.
Houses bought to modernise
Westone is a district of mature houses rather than new builds. Some estate-agent listings for the area describe homes as being in need of general modernisation, and that phrase usually tells us the scope before we arrive: a full redecoration rather than a refresh. Walls carry years of patched filler and several colours of emulsion, woodwork has been glossed over many times, and ceilings have often been painted around old light fittings that have since moved.
When a Westone house is being taken back to a blank start, the order of work matters more than the paint. We usually plan it like this:
- Strip any old paper and wash down walls so the true state of the plaster shows.
- Rake out and fill cracks, and decide with you which areas need a skim rather than more filler.
- Do ceilings first, then woodwork prep, then walls, so dust from sanding never lands on finished emulsion.
- Finish doors, skirtings and frames last, once the room is otherwise done.
If you are living in the house while it is done, we work through it a room or a floor at a time so bedrooms stay usable.
Bays, through-lounges and the old-meets-new problem
The interwar and post-war semis on Ashley Way, Oaklands Drive and Firtree Walk are typically bay-fronted. Inside, that bay means a faceted window wall with several narrow returns, a window board and often a curtain-pole line to work around. Each return needs its own cut-in at the ceiling and frame, so a bay front room takes noticeably longer than a square one of the same floor area.
Many of these semis have also been extended at the back, with the old rear wall knocked through to a kitchen-diner or family room. That leaves original walls with decades of paint sitting right next to new plaster. The two take paint very differently: fresh plaster soaks up a first coat, while the older surface does not. New plaster needs a thinned mist coat to seal it before any colour goes on, which our guide to painting new plaster explains. Once both surfaces are sealed, we finish the whole open space in one run so the colour reads as a single wall rather than two slightly different ones.
The bigger 1920s houses on Westone Avenue
At the older end of the district are detached character houses such as Westone Lodge on Westone Avenue, a 1925 house marketed as the gateway to Westone. Houses of this age and size usually mean higher ceilings, longer stair runs and much more joinery per house: panelled doors, deep skirtings, architraves and window boards. Those things change how we price and plan a job. Tall stairwells need platforms or a stair ladder set up safely over the treads, and a house with many original doors has a lot more brushwork in it than its floor area suggests.
Original features in older rooms are worth cutting in by hand rather than rolling over. Westone Manor, built in 1914 for the shoe manufacturer William Sears and now a hotel on Ashley Way, is the local example of what that era’s interiors can include: bay windows, an original fireplace and plaster mouldings. Where a house has similar detail, we fill and line it carefully so the edges stay sharp.
Flats, terraces and semis on one road
Conifer Rise shows how varied Westone can be on a single road. Property-record estimates put semis there in the 1950s and 1960s, flats in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and terraced houses from the late 1970s and early 1980s. Flats on Conifer Rise and at Westonia Court on the Wellingborough Road are compact and quick to turn round, while a semi further along might be a whole-house job. We quote each on what it is, not on a standard rate for the street.
Booking a look round
Westone is 2.6 miles from Northampton town centre and well inside the area we cover. Dean will walk round, talk through what each room needs and give you a written quote. For what the work involves in general, see our main interior painting service, and for other trades in the district, our Westone area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
