With over a third of the United Kingdoms housing being of period stock (Tudor, Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian and Arts Décor eras), as with the popularity of magazines such as 'Period Ideas', and the currently popular TV Programmes like 'Grand Designs', this will be of great interest to homeowners, country estates, museums, hotels, restaurants, public inns, building contractors, architects and interior designers alike.

Traditional techniques and materials are regularly employed during the restoration and re-decoration of prestigious historical and listed buildings, capturing their timeless designs. Having experienced an interesting and varied workload to date, undertaking the pleasure of having worked at the museums of Temple Newsam and Nostell Priory, the listed West Riding Public inn, along with contracts in and around the county of Yorkshire and the capital, London. By the use of such materials and craftsmanship, G B Decorating endeavour to preserve and recreate timeless finishes and designs of days gone by while reducing the irreversible damage to these fine buildings, thus helping to maintain the diverse and colourful architectural heritage of this land.

Traditional decorating incorporates materials appropriate to the time, along with some specialist finishing styles and crafts, uncommon to the modern decorator. These tried and tested materials not only compliment the buildings fabric, thus helping the building to breathe, and due to their composite natural ingredients have vast environmental, sustainable advantages. Typical period materials are lime, linseed oil, casein and mineral pigments to name a few.

The understanding of a buildings fabric is paramount to ensuring the longevity of any one type of building. This is plain to see when modern plastic wall coatings have been applied to backfilled cavity / strawbale / clay or cob walls, therefore reducing significantly the permeability of the outer surface. This in turn, results in the fabric of the wall sweating, as it is unable to expel moisture, the outcome of which, the wall becomes saturated and begins to decay from within, over a length of time.