Painters and Decorators in Kenley (CR8)
The Edwardian and interwar houses across Kenley were built with room to spare, and on a decorating quote that shows up as area. Large rooms, generous ceiling heights and moulded joinery that takes longer to prepare than it does to paint.
Big rooms get measured, not eyeballed
A room half as big again as a standard one is not half as much again to decorate, because the awkward parts multiply along with the flat ones: more linear metres of cutting in, longer walls to keep a wet edge across, more moving of steps and boards. Long ceilings are the usual place a job goes wrong, because emulsion that starts to dry before the next band is rolled into it leaves a lap line that shows under any daylight. That means planning the run before starting, and having enough material from the same batch mixed to finish the surface in one go. The preparation underneath — plaster repairs, joinery adjustments, filling and making good — is our own team. The painting is done by specialists we bring in and run ourselves, on a price we wrote and stand behind.
Getting the detail back out of the joinery
Panelled doors, deep skirtings and moulded architrave are a large part of why these houses look the way they do, and a century of repainting tends to bury them. Each coat rounds off an arris and fills a quirk in the moulding a little further, until a crisply run profile reads as a soft lump. Bringing it back is patient work: taking the build-up off the detail rather than sanding the whole face flat, sanding out old runs and brush marks, filling the splits that have opened at the joints, then rebuilding a thin, even film instead of another thick one. It is worth doing once and doing properly. A door prepared that way and finished with two thin coats looks better and lasts longer than the same door given four heavy ones.
Stairwells, landings and working at height indoors
The hall, stairs and landing in a house of this size is one continuous surface running up two or three storeys, and it is decorated as a single job because a break in it always shows later.
The practical problem is standing safely on a staircase. That means a proper stair tower or adjustable-leg access rather than a plank across the treads, which takes time to build, occupies the main route through the house while it is up, and belongs in the price rather than being discovered on site. It is also why the stairwell tends to be programmed as its own phase, done in one push and cleared away, instead of standing half finished while the rooms off it are worked on.
More in Kenley
Everything we do in Kenley is on the Kenley area sheet, and the full detail of how we approach this trade is on the decorating page.
Common questions
Q.01Why does a large room cost more than twice a small one?
Because the fiddly parts scale with it as well as the flat area. More cutting in, longer walls to keep wet, and more time spent moving access about. Rolling the flat surfaces is the quick part.
Q.02Can the original doors be brought back, or are they too far gone?
Usually they can. Layers of old paint round the mouldings off rather than destroying them, so taking the build-up back off the detail and rebuilding a thin film normally recovers the profile.
Q.03Do we need to move out while the stairwell is done?
No, though the stairs will be awkward for a couple of days while access is up. We would rather do that in one push and clear it than leave it standing for a fortnight.
Q.04Do you work near the aerodrome conservation area?
Yes. Where a property sits in the Kenley Aerodrome Conservation Area or against a Green Belt boundary, we check what applies to external work before quoting rather than afterwards. Our office is at 27 High Street, Godstone, a short drive away.
Thinking about decorating in Kenley?
Tell us what you are planning. We come out, look at the job properly and give you a price for it.