We repaint shopfronts, fascia boards, window frames and stallrisers for small businesses in Westone, NN3, about 2.6 miles north-east of Northampton town centre. Dean plans the work around your opening hours and the busy A4500 pavement.
A residential district with a few shopfronts
Westone is mostly houses. Its commercial side is small. Estate-agent copy for the suburb lists two pubs and general stores among its amenities, and the shopfronts that exist sit mainly along the Wellingborough Road (A4500) frontage. Weston Favell Shopping Centre nearby is a separate district centre with its own management, so this page is not about units inside it. It is for a general store or pub frontage on the Westone side of the road.
We cover Westone from Northampton, 2.6 miles away. How we plan around trading in general is on our main shopfront painting page.
Fitting in round early opening and late trade
A general store that opens early and shuts late has a short quiet window, and a pub has the opposite pattern, with mornings that are usually calm. We agree times before we start rather than turning up and working round you. In practice:
- for a convenience store, preparation is often done early in the day or after closing, with the entrance painted in one short slot
- for a pub, most of the frontage can be done in the morning before opening, with doors finished first so they are dry for service
- anywhere near food or an open door gets low-odour, water-based products where the surface allows
Painting beside the A4500
Frontages on the Wellingborough Road face a main A road with steady traffic and pedestrians. That brings two practical points. First, the fascia board, window frames and stallriser are coated in road grime, which has to be washed off and left to dry before sanding, or the new paint will not bond. Second, there is not much pavement to work from, so ladders and podium steps are cordoned off, nothing is left unattended on the footway, and we keep the work area as narrow as we can. A dark colour on a road-facing stallriser hides splashback better than a pale one.
What a small Westone frontage involves
Most frontages here are modest: one fascia board, a door, one or two display windows and a low stallriser. That makes them a reasonable job to finish over a short run of dry days. Before starting, Dean checks:
- whether the fascia carries hand-painted lettering or a fixed sign, so we know what to protect, remove or leave for a signwriter
- the condition of timber at the base of the door and the sills, where rot usually starts
- any metal shutters, brackets or security grilles that need a metal primer
If you also own the flat above, or the side wall needs masonry paint, that can be quoted at the same visit, and doing it together means the access is only set up once.
Colour and the street
Westone is not in a conservation area, so there are no extra conservation controls on frontage colours, though planning rules on advertisements can apply to signs. If your business is on the Weston Favell side of the road, the village there is a conservation area, and colour choices may need more thought. Even on the Westone side, a frontage on this stretch is seen across the road from the village’s stone cottages and boundary walls, so a muted shade often sits more comfortably than a bright one. For guidance on choosing someone for commercial work, see how to choose a painter and decorator, or visit our Westone page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
