Colorblind House Painter

There are jokes about colorblind house painters. That made it tough for me! I usually tried not to slip and tell a customer I was colorblind. I painted houses for several summers in the 1970s. I liked it because I was outside and could work when I wanted to.

The first summer I painted a house on White Street up near the railroad tracks. A friend wanted to work with me so I let him join in. He had a truck and a ladder so that worked well. We did a couple houses and split the money.

The next year he wanted to go on his own. He thought he could make more money on his own. I was a little disappointed but decided to go ahead on my own. I used car top racks and borrowed my Dad’s ladder.

I learned a lot about house painting. I learned how to calculate how much paint would be needed for a job. It is all based on the number of square feet that need to be covered. Other things like the absorbency of the surface or the number of coats that are being applied have to be considered.

I always let the customer choose the color and kind of paint they wanted and I even preferred that they purchase it directly from the store if possible. I just told them how much to get and I was usually pretty accurate. I preferred the more expensive paints because they seemed to spread easier.

Houses first had to be prepared for the paint. Sometimes that meant hours of scraping. I discovered that on many houses you could scrape for days and not seem to make any progress. The process of scraping took of the loose paint but also loosened up other spots. The more you scraped the more was loosened up and soon you realize you have to stop doing that or you will be scraping until all of the paint is off the house.

It was sometimes hard to find a safe place to put the ladder on a house. Siding was sometimes soft or rotten. I did break one pane of a second story window when I got the ladder too close. I was able to repair it quickly.

I painted some pretty high places including the bell tower on the First Presbyterian Church. That was kind of scary! A crane was used to lift a painting platform up next to the tower and we painted from there.

I painted high places on many houses, too. Sometimes I had to stretch as far as I could to cover all of the spots. It was very scary at times. I fell only once and it was down the ladder and I caught myself before I got to the ground. I was very sore for a while but not seriously injured.

I think I was a good painter and had several satisfied customers even though I am colorblind. I just tried to make sure I covered every spot with the paint. Usually, it was white on white so it wasn’t much of a problem.