One of our favorite customers asks us, upon the occasion of her pressurewash, "what's to stop all that mold from coming back in this wet weather?"  We may claim to be Newton's best house painters, after all, but we can't stop the rain from falling.

Great question!  Here's your answer, Annette: the mildew spores take at least a full season to adhere and all exterior paints contain mildewcide...so the spores require an airborne food source to stick to the house--pollen, dirt, dust.  A well-washed substrate (surface) will not offer the spores sanctuary for a few months.

An excellent primer (har dee har har) on just who is defining green for paint over at the Ben Moore websiite.

Check out our green page here, and then go right on over to Ben's page.

Newton, Brookline, Wellesley, Boston...go green with Massachusetts' most environmentally friendly house painters and Ben Moore.

A customer of ours in Newton, MA reports that the extent to which our crew shields his house from the assorted detritus and mess that typically ride side-saddle to a painting project has been truly noteworthy; he's invited several business colleagues to watch us at work today.

We take that as high praise, to be sure; more still, it's a reminder to us that the stakes are always high, even on an everyday exterior one sunny day in June.

Thanks for your kindness, Andy!

A busy, busy beginning to the summer here at Catchlight: new house painting projects opening in Weston and Newton.  We'll endeavor to get back on the blogging horse more regularly here, but in the meanwhile, enjoy this lovely commercial from our friends at Sherwin Williams:

Anthem 30...Song by The Pernice Brothers.

Commercial's zazzy and catchy enough that it woke me (pleasantly) from a relatively sound sleep last night.  Yes, I know, 'zazzy' is probably not a word.  But it fits.

I love the song, too.  Puts me in mind of a nice, forgotten classic of the power pop genre--my favorite branch of Musica Americana.

From the desk of Catchlight Painter Kate B:
The day that a job is finished up can be one of the most labor-intensive days on a site but also brings about a great feeling of accomplishment in me. The day usually consists of getting all those last little things done; touching up cut lines, painting the last door, putting the switch plates back on the dried walls and locating that last screw that hopefully didn’t fall into the heating vent (…Oh there it is, under the pile of plastic we used to protect your furniture), pulling the tape and vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming.  This is one of my favorite days because of its quick jumps from task to task allowing no time to get exasperated like I have been known to do when a day consists only of sanding ceilings...

 The fun is sometimes paused when I then realize I have to carry the shop vac down three, four, five flights of stairs through freshly painted hallways when it now weighs 60 pounds from dust and dried mud pieces.   But it’s just a step in loading up the van to leave you to enjoy your newly revamped or touched-up home.  I like to stop for a moment and take a look at the work done and enjoy what I and the rest of the team was able to accomplish.  And I hope that after we’ve gone on our way, on to the next job to start the process over again, that we’ve left you with a clean and pleasant place to come home to, cook in, relax in and live life in.  I’m proud to have been part of the house painting team that made it all happen.

A good friend of our business reflects that our usage of a self-addressed stamped envelope for easy contract return is part and parcel of our extra mile philosophy.

Exceeding our customers' expectations for the low, low cost of two 59 cent stamps.  Seems like a bargain to this house painter.

Can I use today's 70-and-sunny as a retroactive excuse for not posting last Friday's links?  I think I shall...

Alone among Newton's painting contractors, Catchlight employs a Director of Operations who so cherishes the onset of warmer weather that he's created a mental hierarchy of the season's important markers:

1. Opening Day.  This is the beginning of spring.

2. Exterior Day.  Today...the first ask no questions give no quarter beautiful day of the year.  We should all be outside today, brushes in hand.

3. Porch Day.  The first night you fire up the grill, open a beer, and have some tasty evening vittles on your back deck, or porch, or steps.  Wherever...it's sunny, you're outside, and life is good.

4. May 1.  The official first day of summer.

Word of the week - vestigial.

Heard at the RDC last week, thrown out by the Cambridge architect Frank Shirley, in reference to the gradual disappearance of the formal dining room in contemporary floor plans:

"The vestigial dining room, soon consigned to the history books, much like the butler's pantry."

In our house, the dining room sees use perhaps 3 times a year.  My children have vestigial table manners - does that work?

These days, one might be tempted to suggest that the professional standards of painting contractors are at risk of similar extinction.  Not here, of course, where service and technical competence are held in higher regard than lucre.