TeknosPro brings “Downing Street” quality to Brixton Road

London social housing provider, Lambeth Living, is using a high-quality black gloss paint from TeknosPro on 380 front doors on properties in Brixton, south London.

The first 24 properties to be finished are in a Grade II listed terrace of three-storey Victorian town houses on Brixton Road.  Built originally as single dwellings, the houses have since been subdivided to provide a variety of mixed-tenure flats ranging from one to three bedrooms.

As the freeholder, Lambeth Living is responsible for maintenance and has hired contractor, JRS Construction Security Services, to repair and restore the building facades.

Banbury-based Robert Babb, who is subcontracted to re-paint the front doors, selected TeknosPro’s Futura Aqua in gloss black for the job.
“We’re after what I call a ’10 Downing Street’ finish,” says Robert. “It’s the most famous front door in the country and the paintwork is stunning!” he adds.

Preparing the doors involves cleaning the existing paintwork and spot-priming any areas of bare wood with Futura Aqua 3 primer before applying three coats of gloss. “There’s no need for an undercoat,” says Robert. 

“The finish achieved with the Futura Aqua gloss paint is flawless”, says Robert: “It’s the only paint I’ve worked with which is truly self-levelling; there’s no dragging, no slumping, just a mirror-flat finish,” he says.

Because the buildings are listed, all materials must be approved by Lambeth Council’s planning department as well as the client. The TeknosPro paint was approved after a trial application on two doors demonstrated its quality and finish. 

The TeknosPro Futura exterior wood and metal paints are premium quality coatings for professional use, developed in cooperation with professional painters. The low VOC, water-borne paints are easy to apply, dry quickly and are designed to give a harder, more durable surface than normal interior paints.

The Futura Aqua 80 gloss paint used by Robert is specially formulated for doors, window casements, architraves and mouldings both indoors and outside. A water-borne urethane alkyd-based top coat, it has a spreading rate of up to 10m2 per litre and is quick and easy to apply with either a brush, roller or spray.

“The first 24 doors took me only five weeks to re-paint – and that was with just me on the job” says Robert. He now has another 80 doors to paint, with the possibility of a further 300.