A painter and decorator for Illogan and the road down to Portreath

There is not much between Illogan and Portreath to slow the wind down, and the rain that comes with it arrives at an angle. The elevations that face the coast, the north and west sides of most houses here, are the ones where the masonry paint has gone chalky, the sills have opened up and the fascia paint has peeled back to bare timber, while the sheltered side round the back still looks fine.

The preparation is where the job is won or lost on a wall like that. The render is washed down to shift the green growth and the salt, hairline cracks are opened out and filled, anything hollow is cut back and made good, and old chalky paint is bound before a breathable masonry coating goes on in two coats. Timber gets the same care: soft wood cut out, bare wood primed, the coats rebuilt so the joints are sealed.

Timing matters as much as the method. The best time of year for exterior painting on this side of the ridge is the settled stretch from late spring into early autumn, and even then we watch the forecast. A north-facing wall in Illogan takes longer to dry out after rain than the same wall in Redruth, so we would rather start a day later and put paint on a dry surface than chase a date.

The old village is the part around the church and the school: granite cottages, some left as bare stone with painted woodwork, others rendered and painted years ago, all of them with solid walls that need to breathe. On these the paint has to let moisture out, inside and out, and we say so before we quote rather than putting a sealed coating on a wall that will hold damp behind it.

Most of the housing, though, is twentieth century. Along the roads out towards Portreath and back towards Redruth, and through Illogan Highway, there are long runs of bungalows and semis from between the wars onward, with cement render or pebbledash, timber or uPVC windows, and attached garages. A bungalow is a good exterior job: the whole thing can usually be reached from ladders and a short tower, the garage door and the fascias go in the same visit. The catch is dash, which drinks paint and takes longer to work into than smooth render.

Tehidy woods and the country park are on the doorstep, which means trees close to a lot of the houses on that side. Shaded north walls under a canopy hold moisture and grow green faster than an open elevation, so a wash-down there is not optional, and gutters full of leaves are a common reason a stained wall keeps coming back after it has been painted.

Illogan is a village of families and people who have retired here, with a scattering of holiday lets on the Portreath side. For the retired owner of a bungalow it is often the whole outside in one go, walls, woodwork and garage, done in a few dry days while the weather holds, with the interior picked up room by room afterwards. For a family it is more often the inside: a hallway that has taken a decade of school bags, a bedroom being handed from one child to the next.

For holiday lets the calendar decides everything. The outside is best done in the quiet months while the property is empty and there is still a dry week to be had, which in practice means booking it early in the year. In season it is changeover work between guests, a scuffed stairwell or a bedroom that needs a coat before the next arrival, and we say honestly what fits in the gap rather than promising a full repaint in a two-day changeover.

Every exterior is walked round before a figure is put on it. We check the render by hand on each elevation, look at the state of the sills, fascias and garage door, and note where the ground is uneven, where a hedge or a lean-to gets in the way of a ladder. On a bungalow that is usually all ladder and tower work; on a two-storey house with a tall gable to the wind it may need scaffold, and the quote says which.

The quote lists the preparation allowed for, the number of coats and what is included. Rotten sills or blown render that only show once the old paint is off are put to you as a separate decision, with a price, before anyone touches them.