Paint & restoration · Garrison Bay heritage district · est. 1998
Old walls deserve better than modern hurry.
Northbank paints the district’s listed houses — lime-compatible colours, sash windows brushed rather than masked, finishes matched to what the wall was wearing before we arrived. The town has a look. We keep it.
What we do
Four crafts of the district
Listed-house repaints
Colour matched to the original through pigment samples and applied in breathable systems over lime plaster — a plastic film on an 1890s wall traps the moisture that later pushes it off in sheets. Breathability is not a premium here; it is the specification.
Lime plaster & hairline cracks
Cracks raked out and filled with lime putty rather than cartridge caulk, cornices re-run where a ceiling has sagged. The repair cures at the wall’s own pace and disappears under a distemper or mineral coat.
Sash windows & trim
Glazing bars brushed by hand in a linseed system — masking a sash is how the putty lines learn to flake. Rails, sills and meeting rails get the full scrape-back, prime and two topcoats.
Colour archaeology
Under six layers of off-white, most of the district’s houses are wearing their original colours. We expose a window of history at the survey, match it in a modern mineral paint, and hand you the card with the swatch stapled to it.
The wall
The district, kept
How it goes
How a listed job goes
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Day 0
The survey
Two hours with a head torch and a moisture meter. You get a written system — which coats, which colours, which weeks — and the pigment card for anything pre-1940.
Week 1
Gentle prep
Dry scraping and soft washing only: sandblasting a lime wall is how you buy a replastering job. Bare timber is primed the day it is bared.
Weeks 2–3
Coats at the wall’s pace
Mineral and distemper systems go on thin and cure between coats. The calendar bends to the wall, never the wall to the calendar.
Final day
The walk with the lamp
Every elevation raked with a work light before the scaffold drops, the punch list done on the spot, and the colour card left with you for the next century’s owners.
Word of mouth
Three keepers of the district
The conservation officer asked for a sample panel and Northbank turned up with three, plus the paint archaeology from under our six layers of magnolia. Approved on the first submission.
They brushed the sash windows by hand while I worked from the dining table. No masked-off putty lines, no stolen glazing bars, and the linseed smell beat the usual solvent week by a mile.
Our parlour ceiling had a crack you could post a coin through. You cannot find it now, and the cornice run matches the 1902 original — the surveyor photographed it for his own file.
Fair questions
Do we need listed-building consent?
For like-for-like colours and systems, usually not — but we prepare the sample panel and the method statement for your conservation officer either way, because approval letters make neighbours braver.
Why mineral paint on an old wall?
It soaks in and silicifies rather than filming on top, so the wall keeps breathing and the moisture that ruined your last decorator does not get trapped against the plaster.
Can you match the original colour?
Almost always. We cut a small exposure window, read the layers, and have the match mixed into a modern breathable system — you keep the history and lose the chalk.
Is it slower than standard painting?
Honestly, yes — thin coats cure at the wall’s pace. What you get back is a finish that is still sound at year fifteen instead of peeling at year five.
Do you take modern houses too?
Half our work is ordinary homes that happen to want the care. The methods cost the same on a 1998 semi as on an 1890 terrace, and so does the attention.
The survey is free. The history is part of it.
We bring the torch, the moisture meter and the pigment cards, and you get a written system within the week — which coats, which colours, which weeks.
Prefer to talk it through? (555) 447-9021, Monday to Saturday — if we are up a scaffold, we ring back by six. · surveys@northbankfinishes.example