Painting and Decorating In Nelson, Done Properly

Nelson keeps Lee busy with painting and decorating, and the reason is in the building stock. Late Victorian and Edwardian weaving terraces in long uniform runs, solid walled, with lath and plaster ceilings and near-universal artex overlay. Work with that rather than against it and the result lasts. Ignore it, price the job on area alone, and you get the patchy, cracked finishes that give the trade a bad name around here.

The most common frustration after a plastering job is the wait. The walls are beautiful, the room is unusable until it is painted, and the decorator cannot fit you in for three weeks. Offering the painting as well closes that gap: the plaster goes on, it dries, and the same person comes back and finishes it, so the room comes back into use on a schedule you were told about at the start.

Being straight about scope: this is finishing work that follows a plastering job, not a full decorating firm. Wallpapering, specialist finishes, spraying and large commercial decorating contracts are not what Lee does, and you will get pointed at somebody who does rather than getting a stretched yes.

What that means for a Nelson job in practice is that the quote follows the property rather than a rate per square metre. Two houses on the same street can be very different jobs once you know what is behind the surface, and painting and decorating is one of the areas where that gap is widest. Lee looks first, prices second, and tells you which of the two you have got.

The terraces here are largely late Victorian and Edwardian, built in long uniform runs, and they share a set of predictable characteristics. Solid walls, original lath and plaster ceilings in many of the older ones, and a near-universal layer of textured coating applied at some point in the seventies. Add a century of fireplaces coming out, walls being papered and stripped and papered again, and rewires chased through, and you have the classic Nelson wall: sound underneath but a patchwork on the surface.

That is exactly what a skim is for. Two coats of finish plaster over a properly prepared background puts the entire history behind you in a day, and once the decorator has been in the room reads as new. It is far and away the most requested job in this town, and doing hundreds of them means the awkward bits, the reveals, the meter cupboards, the stair walls with no easy access, are routine rather than a surprise.

The rest is ordinary careful decorating: filling and caulking the small movement at junctions, cutting in cleanly at ceilings, coving and skirtings, and sheeting and masking properly so nothing needs touching up afterwards. There is nothing clever about it, but there is a real difference between edges cut in by someone with a steady hand and edges done in a hurry.

Practicalities. A single room is typically a day to a day and a half once the plaster is fully dry. Usually quoted alongside the plastering as one figure, which is cheaper than booking it separately because the set-up and access are already there. Nelson and the surrounding area, Barrowford, Brierfield, Fence included, are all covered from Rossendale. Floors and furniture get sheeted before work starts, and the debris leaves with Lee rather than sitting in your hallway.