Bungalows, semis and chalet houses from the last seventy years
The old core by the beach is small. Most of Perranporth is the housing that spread up the valley and over the hills from the 1950s onward: bungalows on wide plots, semis and short terraces on the estates, chalet-style houses with rooms in the roof and a balcony on the front. Nearly all of it is cavity blockwork under cement render or dash, with timber or hung-tile detail on the gables and big windows facing the view.
That is straightforward housing to paint. There is no lime plaster to think about, no listed frontage, and usually a drive to stand the ladders on. What decides the job is condition: render gone chalky and green on the weather side, hairline cracks round the window heads, dash that has lost its paint down to the aggregate, a seaward gable with three cheap coats over the original. We wash it down, cut out and fill what is hollow or cracked, bind anything chalky and put on two full coats of a proper exterior masonry coating. Dash takes more paint and more time than smooth render, and we allow for it rather than finding out on the day.
If you have wondered what makes one three-bed semi cost more to paint than the one next door, it is nearly always this: the state of the surfaces, how much painted timber there is, and whether every elevation can be reached from the ground or a ladder. Size comes a long way behind.
Fascias, flat roofs, balconies and decks
Fascias, soffits and bargeboards are often original softwood, sometimes with a uPVC cap from later on. We paint the timber, rubbing back to sound paint, treating soft spots, priming bare wood and sealing the joints where water gets in. uPVC we leave alone.
Flat-roofed extensions and porches have rendered parapets that get wet from the top as well as the face, so they are usually the first bit of a wall to blow and are made good before coating. Chalet houses and the larger places on the hill have balconies: timber balustrades and decking, steel railings, and the wall behind them. Decking near the beach goes grey and furry fast, and painted balustrades open up at every joint. Both need stripping back, drying out and rebuilding coat by coat, and a steel rail wants taking to bright metal and rust-primed first.
The wind is the factor in all of this rather than the headline. Perranporth faces west onto a long open beach with dunes behind it, so sand and salt come up the valley on any decent blow. It does not change what we do, it changes how thoroughly. The wash-down goes further, the drying time is longer, and the weather-facing side of the house is done in the settled weeks between late spring and early autumn, which fill up early on this coast.
Flats, guest houses and larger lets
A good share of the property near the seafront and along the roads out of town is let: purpose-built flats and converted houses, guest houses, and the bigger houses let by the week through the summer. The owners want durable neutral finishes that take a touch-up, communal stairs done in phases so nobody is shut out, and a decorator who will collect keys, work from a list and send photographs at the end.
For a landlord with several flats we can run through them in a block during the quiet months, keeping one specification so any later repair matches. For a guest house it is usually the bedrooms in rotation over the winter and the breakfast room and hallway done in the shortest closed spell. Holiday lets follow the booking calendar: a full repaint between November and March, single rooms fitted to a changeover in season, and an honest answer about which is which.
Out in the Perranzabuloe villages, Bolingey and Goonhavern among them, it is older cottages and later bungalows, and the same work with a bit less salt in it.
Inside the houses
Interiors in Perranporth are mostly about wear. Sand comes in on feet and dogs and wetsuits, so halls, stairs and landings scuff faster here than almost anywhere, and the bottom metre of a hallway wall in a family house or a let is the first thing to go. A washable emulsion in a mid-tone rather than a bright white lasts longer there, and the woodwork wants a satin or gloss that can take a wipe down.
The bungalows and chalet houses bring their own list: textured ceilings painted so many times they hold every roller mark, a kitchen refitted and left with raw plaster above the new units, and sloping bedroom ceilings in the roof that need a careful line where they meet the wall. New plaster gets a mist coat before colour. Old paper comes off with steam and the wall behind it is filled and lined before anything new goes on.
We work in the house while you live in it, keeping a room or two out of use at a time, using low-odour water-based paints so a bedroom done in the day is slept in that night, and leaving the place tidy each evening. We look at the job before quoting and the quote sets out the rooms, the preparation and the coats it covers. If you want a colour tried on the wall before you commit, ask and we will put a patch up.