General question… we were in a General Paint store this morning and my wife wondered why painters always seem to wear white.
Good question, why do painters always seem to wear white?
General question… we were in a General Paint store this morning and my wife wondered why painters always seem to wear white.
Good question, why do painters always seem to wear white?
Listeners write in about saving frogs, attic ductwork, lime wash, and energy ratings for real estate.
"I have learned so much thanks to the searchable articles on the FHB website. I can confidently say that I expect to be a life-long subscriber." - M.K.
Get home building tips, offers, and expert advice in your inbox
Fine Homebuilding
Get home building tips, offers, and expert advice in your inbox
© 2024 Active Interest Media. All rights reserved.
Fine Homebuilding receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
Get home building tips, offers, and expert advice in your inbox
Become a member and get instant access to thousands of videos, how-tos, tool reviews, and design features.
Start Your Free TrialStart your subscription today and save up to 70%
SubscribeGet complete site access to expert advice, how-to videos, Code Check, and more, plus the print magazine.
Already a member? Log in
Replies
Because they can bleach all their clothes each week to get rid of all the different color paint drips they inevitably get on their clothes from painting all day.
Honest to God...That's the reason.
#1 That's what paint stores sell
#2 Only carpenters wear denim
#3 Only used car salesmen wear lime green leisure suits
Really it was when painters used to wash their work clothes (overalls ) in lye to keep them clean (bleached them white) Kind of stuck as the uniform. Or at least that's what Granddad told me!!
In the days before computer paint matching, painters used to mix their colors on the spot, and the closest, clean "canvas" for testing this was their white outfit. A dab here, a dab there to get the right hue. They really hated women who couldn't make up their minds, so that's why their pants tended to be a bit oversized. You may have wondered why painter's pants have hammer loops like carpenter's pants, but that was to carry the blunt tool they used to deal with the aforementioned ladies. The baggy pants also allowed them to do now what we do with a paper towel with acrylics -- dab off that bit that went over the border. Joke.
Precision freehand painting has almost gotten impossible to find now. The old style was with a quality natural brush with a thin alkyd enamel -- now it's a nylon brush with a thick acrylic. VOCs, after all. But it's sold a lot of blue tape and razor trimmers. The other aspect of modern painting is that nobody has any time for it anymore. Old painters tended to be guys who were thin, never talked too much, and moved fairly slowly. You never saw them at bars in your town, unlike carpenters and roofers. Yet, for all their slowness, they were tremendously efficient, getting the job done sooner than you'd expect. They had long fingers, like you'd expect of a pianist, and their smooth strokes were wonderful to observe.
barmil,
Nice... sounds like a lot of painters that have worked for my dad and granddad
My dad always would say that all fan decks and computer matching have done is create a whole generation of painters that cant mix colors.
Older painters are great characters
In a similar vein, a painter I knew back when interiors were oil based paint on beaded ceiling boards and spar varnish on pine flooring said that alcohol was the only thing that would cut paint from a man's throat. He said that he knew an entire family of carpenters down in Yazoo City change to the painting trade when they learned that...
I suppose he was kidding, but I just don't know. I knew some of those old boys from Yazoo.
HarryD
My dad tells me about a painter who his dad knew who had painted the interior of the state capitol and also did work for my grandpa. Dad tells me the painter wore white cotton gloves and used them to remove stray dabs of paint. Dad remembers talking to Percy and Percy would pause now and then and with a deft flick of a finger wipe a spot of paint.
Hi David, I came on this site after you so I will have to change my name. My father-in-law told me about painters who came on the job in their whites, did excellent work, and even wore ties!
I asked an old, old timer (retired many years now) why he wore white. He told me that it was a sign of a job well done. At then end of the day, he would judge how well the job was done by how much paint was on his or his guys white cloths. He prided himself that at the end of a day painting his shirt was spotless. He joked that you can always tell the experienced painters from the rookies by how many spots, drips and dots are on their shirts at the end of day. The new guy looks like a rainbow, the 15 year guy may have an odd spot here or there, the 30+ year guy’s shirt looks like it just came out of the package.