Woodwork, trim & fine brushing · Colthorpe old town · bench established 1994
The wood is why we brush.
Stiles & Beads paints the parts of a house people touch — doors, spindles, skirting, panelling — in hand-brushed enamels laid off with the grain, never masked, never hurried. Walls we will spray by agreement, where a gun honestly wins. Wood gets the brush, always, because wood remembers.
Brushwork only where wood is concerned · spray quoted as its own line, never blended · bench@stilesandbeads.example
Rates printed since 1994: doors $96 a leaf, spindles $9 each, full stair runs from $640 — and colour-matching to your existing enamel is on the card as included. (555) 019-7732.
Services
Five disciplines, one bench
01
Doors, hung and brushed
Taken off their hinges, degreased, sanded to 240 and primed with a bonding coat that grips forty years of old varnish instead of arguing with it. Two enamel topcoats laid off with the grain and the door hung back on its own screws — a brushed edge is an edge a gun cannot find.
02
Stairs, spindle by spindle
Balustrades done the slow way: spindles brushed in two passes and tipped by hand, handrails flowed and laid off, newel posts treated like the furniture they are. Sprayed spindles photograph well and flake at the first damp winter — we brush, and the card prices the difference honestly.
03
Skirting, architraves & frames
The frame of every room, glossed or egged to a one-line sheen map we write with you: satin where hands travel, full gloss where boots and vacuum cleaners do their worst, eggshell on dark woods that gloss would turn to plastic. Fillers colour-matched so the caulk line disappears under the first coat instead of announcing itself forever.
04
Wainscoting & panelling
Period panelling in linseed systems that move with the timber: prime thinned to soak the end grain, coats built up thin, and a glaze drawn out at the end if the wood has earned one. Modern plastic paint on old panels is how they learn to crack — breathability here is not a premium, it is the specification.
05
Windows, sashes & glazing
Glazing cut and puttied fresh, sashes eased and brushed — masking a sash is where putty lines learn to flake. Linseed or acrylic to suit the frame’s age, always breathable, never skin-tight, and the meeting rails done by hand because they are the first thing the weather reads.
Interior door, per leaf$96
Off its hinges, bonded, two enamel topcoats, hung
Spindle, brushed$9
Two passes, tipped by hand; rails by the run
Full stair balustrade$640
Spindles, handrail, newels; sheen mapped with you
Skirting & architraves, per room$210
Filled, sanded, primed, two topcoats
Panelled wall, per bay$340
Breathable linseed system; glaze optional
Sash window, per sash$185
Eased, puttied, brushed in linseed
Colour match to existingincluded
Spectro-read from a removed bead or spare length
Spray line, by agreementquoted
Flat walls and ceilings only — named on the quote
Rates
The bench card
The card prices the piece, brushwork included. Spray, where we agree it earns its keep, is quoted as its own line so you can see what each tool costs — no blending, no surprises at invoice time. Paint itself goes on at the till price with the receipt stapled, because we sell the brushing, not the markup.
Kill the gloss
Degreased, sanded to 240 and bonded with a primer that bites old varnish. Skipping this is why enamel peels off in sheets by the third winter — the coat was fine; the ground was not.
Build thin, lay off wet
Two or three thinned coats, each laid off with the grain in a single pass, edges drawn, tips tipped. Enamel built thick wrinkles; enamel laid off wet levels like glass.
Dust it, then judge it
Between coats the surface is flatted and tacked, and at the end we walk it with a raking lamp laid almost flat — the one test a brushed edge cannot lie to.
The method
How the brush wins
Every brushing trade has the same three honest steps, and every trade that skips one sells the same three regrets. We still take the steps — that is the entire studio, and it is why a brushed door outlasts the fashions that were sprayed over its neighbours.
Bray Stiles, at the bench since the apprenticeship
Founder. Left school into a decorating firm that still ground its own colours, spent nine years on period estates learning why wood moves, and opened the Colthorpe bench in 1994. Bray still brushes the first door of every job himself — the standard the apprentices are measured against is the one he sets by hand each morning.
The wall
Brushed wood around the old town
The last firm sprayed our spindles in a day and they looked like a photograph of painting. Stiles & Beads brushed them in three and they look like joinery. That is the entire difference, and it is worth the week.
Word of mouth
Three doors, hung back on their own screws
They took every door off its hinges and hung them back on the same screws. I checked — same screws. The enamel is so level the cat cannot get a claw into it, and she has honestly tried.
The wainscoting had been slapped with plastic paint by someone with a deadline. They steamed it off, re-primed in linseed, and the panels breathe again — the crack that reopened every winter has stayed shut.
Colour-matched the 1908 filler from a bead they removed, without being asked. Nobody notices the repair, which around here is the compliment.
The raking-lamp handover
We finish by walking every brushed surface with a work lamp laid almost flat — any ripple, missed edge or dust seed is corrected before you see it, not after. If a brushed finish we applied fails inside five years, the re-do is ours, brush and bench included.
Fair questions
Why brush, when spraying is faster?
Because a brush carries paint into the grain and the edges, and a gun lays a mist on top of them. For flat walls we will spray by agreement — its own line on the quote — but woodwork that gets touched, leaned on and weathered gets brushed here, and the card prices that honestly.
Can you match the existing woodwork colour?
Spectro-read from a removed bead, a spare length of skirting or the drawer front itself, then proofed brushed — not chipped — onto a spare length for your approval. Old enamel has yellowed with age; we match what it is now, and we say so when a perfect match would be the wrong idea.
Which sheen should woodwork wear?
Written with you on a one-line sheen map: satin on rails and panels where the light rakes, full gloss on doors and skirting that take boots and vacuum cleaners, eggshell on dark woods that gloss would turn to plastic. One sheen everywhere is how woodwork starts to look like piping.
How long is a stair out of service?
A full balustrade is three days and the stair stays walkable throughout — we brush one side, then the other, and the handrail is yours again every evening. Doors are off for two days per floor, numbered and stacked flat in the room they came from.
Do you paint the walls as well?
Yes — whole rooms, rolled and laid off wet, with the woodwork already priced on the card. Walls and trim in one visit and one invoice, and the cut lines where they meet are brushed by the same hand that brushed everything else.
Bring us the door you keep repainting.
Tell us the wood and the street. The bench visit is free, the card comes out at your kitchen table, and the number on it is the number you pay. bench@stilesandbeads.example