Crown Trade Delivers Complete Care Package for Saffron Housing Trust

A supported living home in Norfolk has been refreshed using products from Crown Trade’s extensive range in a bespoke colour scheme devised for the project by Crown’s colour consultants.   

Saffron Housing Trust’s in-house repairs and maintenance team repainted 20 en-suite bedrooms, the living room and dining area, as well as the corridors and stairwells at Grays Fair Court in New Costessey, near Norwich. One of Saffron Housing Trust’s four ‘housing with care’ accommodation sites, it consists of 34 ‘housing with support and care’ flats, 20 respite care beds for patients recovering from surgery and day care facilities.   

As the building remained in use by customers and staff throughout, the painting had to be carried out sensitively with the team working carefully around customers over a period of several months. Crown Trade’s premium water-based products including Clean Extreme and Fastflow as well as its range of fire retardant Timonox products proved ideal for the project as, being quick drying and low odour, they helped limit disruption for customers, staff and visitors.  

Colour was a key part of the brief to create a space where residents would feel at home but as Crown Trade’s Clean Extreme, Fastflow and Timonox products are all available in a wide range of tintable shades, there was no need to compromise on performance when specifying the right colour.  

Crown’s in–house colour experts worked closely with Saffron to devise a colour scheme drawing on bright, bold colours including deep purples, pinks and oranges in different areas and each combined with a complementary neutral shade. The scheme specified different core colours for each corridor and stairwell to assist with wayfinding and help residents who may struggle with navigating their way around the building, especially for those suffering from dementia.  

Crown Trade’s Clean Extreme Stain Resistant Scrubbable Matt was applied to the walls and ceilings of the bedrooms and living areas at Grays Fair Court. With a Class 1 rating on the ISO11998 testing method, Clean Extreme is scrub resistant up to 10,000 scrubs, meaning the paint surface won’t start to deteriorate – even with a regular and intensive cleaning regime. As well as being easy–to–clean and highly durable it will also resist a variety of common household stains and to retain its ‘just decorated’ look for much longer than a traditional matt.  

Alongside Clean Extreme, the team also used both Crown Trade Timonox Vinyl Matt and Timonox Scrubbable Matt, which have been formulated for use on new and previously painted wall and ceiling surfaces to provide a Class 0 rating against the surface spread of flames. Crown Trade Timonox Scrubbable Matt also offers extra durability as it is scrub resistant, achieving an ISO11998 class 1 rating and is ideal for high traffic communal areas such as hallways, stairwells and fire escape routes.  

Andrew Youngs, planned improvements team leader from Saffron Housing said, “This was the first time we had specified Crown Trade products on such a large-scale project and have been really pleased with both the level of service and the products supplied. The colour team were really helpful, giving us several different options to choose from, and we’ve had great feedback so far from residents and staff about the new scheme.  

“Our painting team have told me how easy the Timonox products were to apply and how much they enjoyed using them. Our experience means we will certainly look to use Timonox for future projects.”  

John Harmer, specification sales manager at Crown Paints added, “I’ve been working closely with Andrew and the team at Saffron Housing for several years to introduce them to the many benefits of Crown’s high-performance products, particularly Timonox. This was a major project with more than 1,000 litres of paint used in total so it was a very good test for Timonox and it’s fantastic to hear such great feedback about it from the decorating team, as well as staff and residents at Grays Fair Court.”