Louis Taylor, owner of All the Colors house painting and drywall business, can recognize the subtle differences between the shades of gray, white and other colors that have been applied to any room he enters.
But only recently have Aroostook County residents been able to tap into his artistry and ability to bring new life to the insides and outsides of homes, some of which have been the same color for decades.
In October, Taylor moved his thriving paint and drywall business from Wilmington, Delaware to Ashland, joining the ranks of transplants to the County. Now, he said he’s getting calls from Mainers up to five hours away.
“If I wasn’t already working on a job in Portage, it would have been a discussion,” he said.
Taylor sees color and space with a different lens than most painting neophytes and laughs when he shares a saying from one of his friends: “Lou will paint anything you want, except the color you ask for.”
Working with Taylor isn’t about giving him a swatch of kitchen yellow or bedroom blue, but what he views as a shared discovery. Some colors will not work in a room because it’s too small or big, he said. It also matters what art is on the walls.
“You want it to be cohesive,” Taylor said. “It hurts to have to reel them back a little, but in the grand scheme of things, I can help them envision the color.”
A friend wanted black walls, but black is the most unforgiving color, he said. It can highlight imperfections in the wall, and the sun can shine brightly on it, making everything a different shade.
His friend eventually got her black wall, just a toned-down version of what she’d originally requested, and now she loves the space, he said.
“And that’s really what it’s about, if you are happy and comfortable in your space,” Taylor said. “It’s fun going through the process.”
Some of Taylor’s clients swear by his service.
Taylor literally painted all of Devin Fletcher’s Delaware home and transformed a fixer upper for him.
“I never had anybody paint my house,” Fletcher said, adding that he had been getting quotes from painters before he met Taylor. He noted that Taylor’s rates seemed especially affordable.
“When he gave me a quote I said ‘OK, paint this and this and this,'” he said, mentioning his Indian Corn-colored deck which is a creamy autumn shade.
And when Fletcher’s friends and family saw the work, the next thing he knew, Taylor was painting at his mother’s house, his neighbor’s house and his sister’s house, Fletcher said.
“My friend was trying to call him recently and I said, ‘He moved to Maine.’ And she said, ‘No, no, no,'” Fletcher said, laughing.
Taylor started All the Colors in 2014, after his wife Melissa had a serious car accident and was unable to work.
“I said, ‘Let’s see if we can make a go of it,’ and we’ve been going ever since,” he said. “It’s always been about helping people. The people often didn’t have the money and I worked within their budgets to help them. “
With an aging County population, he said he wants to help people stay in their homes — based in part on lessons instilled in him by his own grandmother.
Taylor and his wife have visited many vacation spots in Maine, and they considered moving to the state for years. But while Melissa was initially reluctant to move to Aroostook County because of its especially cold weather, a stop in Houlton on one of their trips started to change that.
When they saw the downtown pedestrian bridge aglow in white lights and the downtown square, she started to soften, she said.
They eventually found a home in Ashland.
“To be honest, I haven’t seen my wife happier,” Taylor said. “I love the quietness, the community, the way we rally around the local business. We want to be a part of that.”
For now they are still settling in, and Taylor is concentrating on interior drywall and painting jobs until spring. He just completed stripping lead-based paint trim and re-painting the living room and high ceiling stairwell in Jennifer Pitcairn’s 1940s Portage home.
“He did a good job, and they were lovely to work with,” Pitcairn said. “I am so glad they are here. I have plenty of painting to get done and there is a lot on my wish list.”
Taylor completed the project while Pitcairn was away, and he sent her photos of the progress to keep her informed, she said, adding that there are so few professional painters in the County.
“He asked me what I wanted done in certain areas and I told him to decide, I trusted him,” she said.
And the Taylors have one other goal this winter.
“I’d like him to paint our house,” Melissa said, laughing.
