Painter Drachten: façades and colour with a plan

To be honest: Drachten lies on the other side of Friesland, about 50 km from our address in Mirns as the crow flies. Still, it is simply part of our working area. We plan it with a bit more room, with good preparation and photos beforehand, so the site visit hits the mark first time. After that there is a fixed quote, and you know where you stand.

Here we paint façades, window frames, doors and fascia boards, and walls and ceilings inside. Wood rot repair and small carpentry jobs are part of it. See exterior painting in Drachten if it is mainly about the outside, or interior painting in Drachten for walls and ceilings.

Drachten began as a village in the peat, with the Drachtstervaart as the link to the rest of Friesland. The real growth began when Philips settled here in 1950, the factory where the shavers come from. In a short time post-war neighbourhoods were added, such as De Wiken and De Trisken, and many people there now live in a terraced or semi-detached house.

That shapes the work. Where in Sneek or Leeuwarden you deal with old profiles, here you mostly see fascia boards, wooden panels under the windows and board materials. That building period has its own weak spots, and a painter can recognise them well if you know where to look.

Few towns have such a special colour history. In the early 1920s the artist Theo van Doesburg made a colour scheme for a row of middle-class homes in Drachten, in bright primary colours. The neighbourhood has been called the Papegaaienbuurt ever since. If you live there, first check with the municipality what is allowed, because colour is part of the history there.

In the rest of the town colour does a lot too. A row with the same window frames can suddenly become individual with a different front door, without clashing. You can read more about combinations with your bricks and roof tiles at choosing the right colour for your façade. At the site visit we hold colours up against your own façade, and that is always different from on a screen.

On post-war homes the same points often come back. Fascia boards have often been painted over for years and suffer at the bottom from a leaking gutter. Panels under the windows can be made of board material, whose edges absorb damp and swell. Window frames are often still good, but the sealant has gone hard and cracked after all those years.

We start by probing and looking, and then discuss what becomes repair, splicing in or replacement. At painting cladding you can read what is possible with panels. If Trespa has been used, it can be painted too, provided the pre-treatment is good. Opaque exterior paintwork lasts 6 to 8 years as a rule of thumb.

North of Drachten lies Burgum, on the Prinses Margrietkanaal and close to the De Alde Feanen national park. There water and damp play a bigger role again. To the south lies Beetsterzwaag, a village with stately country estates and old trees, where the woodwork is often richly detailed and shade keeps the façades wet for longer.

So within a small radius there are very different houses, and we tailor the work to that. Feel free to say in your enquiry whether family or neighbours have something planned too. Then the site visit can be combined on one day, and you do not need to arrange separately when someone comes to look.

Because we are not around the corner, it helps if you pass on a bit beforehand. Send us photos of the front and rear façade, the fascia boards and the panels under the windows. Add the year of construction and tell us when the last painting was. If you also have interior work, give the dimensions per room and what needs doing.

We reply with our first impression and then agree a moment for the site visit. There we look at the surface and discuss the colours. That way you know before the visit whether it matches what you are looking for, and we know what to bring.

A terraced house has less façade surface than a detached one, but the fascia boards and panels do count. Whether the gutter leaks, whether there is wood rot in the fascia boards and whether the building is easy to reach with scaffolding also makes a difference. With a colour change an extra coat may be needed.

As a national market guide, exterior painting starts from €35 per m2, replacing fascia boards from €55 per running metre and interior painting from €25 per m2. At MJA you get a fixed price after the site visit, and on homes that are two years old or older Dutch VAT is 9 percent. Our own scaffolding has a fixed price.

Mohamed Ajubi is the owner and your fixed contact. We are a member of OnderhoudNL and a recognised training company, and have 4.8 from 25 reviews on Google. We work with Sikkens, Sigma and Wijzonol. Customers praise the clear communication and the honest advice, also when it comes to colours.

Tell us what you want done on 06 3006 0558, by WhatsApp or with the form. Then we look together at when we can come by in Drachten. The quote then states the agreed work at a fixed price, and after the work we walk through everything together.