Painters & Decorators in Kensington

Much of Kensington is white and cream stucco-fronted terrace, with brick above or behind and substantial original joinery. Stucco is a render finish, and a painted stucco frontage shows every defect in the surface underneath it once the light is on it.

Preparation on stucco is most of the job: cutting out and making good cracked or hollow sections, raking and filling, and getting the surface flat before any coating goes near it. Coating over a failing render only hides it until the next winter.

Many terraces face a communal garden square, where frontages are seen as a set rather than individually, and colour is often agreed collectively or set by the freeholder.

Interior work — walls, ceilings, woodwork, trim and wallpapering — is under interior painting. Exterior and stucco work is under exterior painting.

Floors are under wooden flooring, bathrooms and kitchens under tiling.

We also take on wallpapering · fascias, soffits and guttering · heat-reflective coating · StoColor Dryonic · whiteboard walls.

On a stucco frontage, the state of the render decides the cost far more than the square metreage. Sound stucco needs washing down and coating; cracked, hollow or previously patched stucco needs cutting out and making good first, and that is where the hours go.

Height and access come next. A tall terrace frontage needs scaffold, and the cost of that is fixed by time on site rather than by area painted.

Where a square or freeholder specifies the colour and finish, the specification is set and the estimate follows it rather than the cheapest equivalent.