Painter and Decorator in Crosspool.

Crosspool is a 20th-century suburb on high ground about two and a half miles west of the city centre, standing at around 660 feet on the ridge above the Porter and Rivelin valleys. Unlike the hilltop villages of Crookes or Fulwood, it has no ancient core, an 18th-century map shows it as a thinly populated, unnamed stretch with only a few buildings, and the suburb as it exists now was largely built between the 1930s and 1960s. So the work here is inter-war and post-war family housing, not heritage stone. The signature property is the 1930s semi, brick to the ground floor with rendered or pebbledashed upper floors, hipped roofs, and bay windows.

The ridge position is the first thing to factor in. At around 660 feet, Crosspool catches the prevailing wind and weather off the Pennines straight on, so west and south-west-facing fronts weather faster than a sheltered lower suburb. That is why your exposed front fades and flakes before the sheltered back does. Exterior paint up here works hard and wants a proper two-coat system applied in a dry, mild spell so it cures fully, not a single thin coat. We weather-watch the forecast before starting any exterior, because masonry paint on a damp or cold wall does not last.

Pebbledash and roughcast are everywhere on the inter-war fronts, and they are more work than they look. All those little stones give a huge surface area, so the wall drinks two to three times the paint a smooth one would. Where it has greened up on a shaded side, which is common up here, it needs a biocide wash and a proper rinse before any paint goes on, or the algae bleeds back through. It also needs a longer dry window between coats. A cheap quote usually assumes a smooth wall and one coat. Our quote assumes the real surface, a wash if it needs it, and two coats of a breathable masonry paint.

The timber bay windows are the weak point on these houses. The 1930s timber bays, with their flat bay roofs and exposed corner posts, are where rot starts, especially the bottom corners where water sits. Caught early, with the timber mostly sound and a few soft spots, we cut out the rot and splice in new wood, prime it bare, then build up undercoat and gloss or satinwood. Where a whole sill or corner post has gone, that section needs replacing by a joiner before painting. What we will not do is fill over soft, wet timber and paint it, because that just hides the rot for a year while it keeps spreading underneath.

Some of the inter-war houses keep their original Crittall-style steel windows, and those are a different job entirely to timber. Steel windows rust, usually at the corners and along the bottom edges. Painting them properly means wire-brushing or sanding back to clean metal, treating any rust, applying a proper metal primer, then a suitable finish. You cannot just gloss over rusty steel, it bleeds through and lifts within months. Done right, the original steel windows are worth keeping, they suit the house far better than a uPVC swap, and most can be brought back with the right prep.

On colour, these inter-war houses look right with the render in an off-white, a warm grey, or a stone shade, and the timber bay, fascias, and front door picked out. A deeper colour on the door, a heritage green, a navy, or an off-black, gives it a lift without fighting the street. The Little Greene Edwardian range fits the era well. The whole row tends to read better when the colours sit in the same family rather than one house jumping out in a bright shade. We are happy to bring sample pots and try them on the actual render, because colours look different up here in the open light than they do on a chart.