DH Painter & Decorator paints shops, food premises, salons, pub interiors and community buildings in White Hills, NN2, about 2.8 miles north of Northampton town centre. Dean plans each job around opening hours and the people who use the building.
What commercial property White Hills actually has
White Hills is mainly residential, and its commercial premises are small. There is no business park and no large supermarket; the big stores are further south at Kingsthorpe’s shopping centre on Harborough Road. What the district does have is two local groups of businesses:
- The parade beside The Whitehills pub: food retail, a post office counter, a home supplies shop, an Indian restaurant, a takeaway and a hair salon, with the pub itself alongside.
- A smaller cluster west by Whitehills Primary School, built around a Tesco Express with a grill, another takeaway and a nail and beauty salon.
Add St Mark’s Church and its church hall, and the care homes and surgery just to the south, and you have the commercial work in and around White Hills: small units, food premises and community or care interiors. None of it is office-block scale, and every one is in use most of the week.
Food premises and takeaways
Between them the two White Hills groups hold an Indian restaurant, a grill and two takeaways, so a good share of the commercial interiors here are kitchens and serving counters. Those walls take steam, grease and daily cleaning, and ordinary emulsion soaks up grease and can’t be scrubbed. We degrease thoroughly first, then use washable trade finishes suited to the area: tough wipe-clean coatings near the counter and cooking zones, and a durable finish front of house that still looks right to customers. Timing is planned around trading hours, usually by agreeing which closed day or quieter period the work fits into, and doing the kitchen and customer areas in separate stages so the business doesn’t lose a full week.
The pub, the restaurant and their signboards
A bar like the one at The Whitehills pub takes more wear than almost any domestic room: chairs knocking dado height, glasses on window boards, and floors mopped daily up against the skirtings. We recommend hard-wearing satin or eggshell on woodwork and a scrubbable finish on walls up to chair height. Outside, signage boards and painted timber on the pub and restaurant take full weather, and boards facing the road also catch traffic dirt. Those need washing, sanding and a durable exterior system rather than a quick touch-up. Shopfront work on the parades, including fascias, frames and stallrisers, is covered on the shopfront painting page.
Church hall and care settings
St Mark’s church hall and the care homes mapped just south of White Hills are institutional interiors: the building is in use by groups, residents or staff, and the decorating has to fit around them rather than the other way round. In practice that means:
- agreeing with the hall committee or home manager which rooms are free on which days;
- low-odour, water-based paints so rooms can go back into use quickly;
- keeping corridors and fire routes clear, with wet-paint signs and no trailing sheets;
- providing a method statement, risk assessment and proof that we are fully insured.
Parking and access on the main roads
The district is edged by the A508 Harborough Road North and the A5199 Welford Road. Where premises front either road, we plan van parking and keep ladders and materials inside the work area so they never obstruct the pavement or traffic. Small businesses on the parades share parking with customers, so we arrive with only the materials needed for that stage of the job.
For how we plan commercial jobs generally, see the main commercial painting page. White Hills is about 2.8 miles north of Northampton town centre; other local services are on the White Hills page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
