Painters and decorators in Truro who know a Georgian townhouse when they see one

What sets Truro apart from the rest of our patch is not the weather. It is the buildings. Lemon Street and the terraces around the cathedral are Georgian and Victorian townhouses, three and four storeys of solid wall, most of them inside a large conservation area and a good many of them listed. They were built with lime, render outside and plaster inside, and that is still what they need. A cement render or a plastic masonry paint over a lime wall traps the damp the lime was meant to let out, and the result is blown render, blistered paint and a wall that stays wet behind a dry-looking surface.

So the outside of a Truro townhouse is a breathable job from top to bottom: failed lime render cut back and made good in lime, not sand and cement, and a mineral or lime-compatible masonry paint the wall can dry through. The sash windows are the other half of it, rubbed back to sound paint, putty replaced where it has gone, sills primed bare and the coats rebuilt so the joints are sealed and the sashes still slide. A front door in a deep colour finishes the frontage, and on a listed building that colour is not always yours to choose.

Repainting a listed house in its existing colour does not normally need anything. Changing the colour of a listed frontage, or painting stone that has never been painted, can need listed building consent from Cornwall Council, and a noticeable change in the conservation area is worth an enquiry too. We say so on the walk round and hold the quote while you ask. Truro is inland, so salt is not the problem it is in Falmouth or St Ives. Height, age and a solid wall after a wet winter are.

Inside, the houses have high ceilings with plaster cornices, dado rails and picture rails, panelled doors and deep skirtings, a staircase rising through three or four floors, and lime plaster that undulates because it was applied by hand. Emulsion straight onto old lime that has been distempered or limewashed will peel in sheets. The wall is washed and sized, or the failing layers taken back, before anything goes on, and where the plaster has cracked with the building it is filled with something that moves rather than something that sets hard and cracks again.

Cornices and mouldings choked with a century of paint are cleaned out by hand so the detail comes back, and the woodwork, often the largest surface in a Georgian room once you count the shutters, is rubbed down, filled and built up in coats rather than given one thick one. The stairwell needs a platform or tower, a couple of days when the stairs are clear, and a plan for which floor is out of use when.

Wallpaper belongs in these rooms, and the job is lining first, so the finish paper has something even to sit on, whether that is one chimney breast or a whole drawing room.

Truro is where Cornwall's offices are: the council, the courts, the hospital at Treliske, solicitors, accountants and agencies in converted townhouses and newer blocks, and the shops around the centre and Lemon Quay. Commercial decorating here is planned around the working day rather than across it. An office floor is done in sections, or at the start and end of the day and on Saturdays, so nobody is out of a room for longer than a night. A shop is done between closing and opening or in the quiet weeks after Christmas, front of house first, with the reopening date fixed before we start.

The professional offices in period buildings get the same treatment as the houses, because they are the same buildings: lime walls, sashes, cornices and a listed frontage, with a reception that has to look right on Monday morning. Wipeable finishes on the corridors and stairs, the existing colour matched where a new partition needs blending in, and everything cleared before the first person arrives.

Outside the centre Truro is a more ordinary place to decorate: Victorian terraces and villas on the older roads out of town, the twentieth-century estates and newer developments as the city grows out towards Threemilestone and to the north, and the houses down by the river towards Malpas. Render and dash, painted timber, a drive for the van. Straightforward exteriors in the settled months, and inside the usual hall, stairs and landing. On-street parking near the centre is tight, so for the terraces we sort out where the van goes before the first morning.

What a period house needs most is the right order. A Truro townhouse being brought back is rarely a decorating job on its own. There is a builder repairing render, a plasterer patching in lime, a joiner sorting sashes and shutters, an electrician chasing walls, and if the decorator arrives before they have finished the work is done twice. The sensible order is repairs, then plaster, then proper drying time for the lime, which is weeks rather than days, then the other trades' second fix, then us, last through the door. One of our reviews describes a house stripped, prepared and painted throughout alongside other trades, and it worked because the sequence was agreed beforehand. We will help set that sequence and say plainly when a wall is not yet ready for paint.