I started Doodle Painting over five years ago, and the company took off quickly. I began by painting a few neighbors’ homes and have since worked on hundreds of projects in the area, completing about eighty this year alone. Today, the company does everything from painting entire exteriors and interiors to restoring woodwork and kitchen cabinets. We focus on residential homes but have also done some commercial work for local businesses. I like to stick close to home, working primarily in Ardsley Park, which is unusual for a painter. We are also a bilingual company; I have enjoyed brushing up on my Spanish and learning new phrases.

No matter what language we’re speaking, we paint a lot of houses. The color is the fun part, but a tremendous amount of prep work happens beforehand, from setting up plastic barriers and tarps to protect people’s homes to scraping old paint, plaster repair, and carpentry.  Without a solid foundation, even the best paint won’t last. Some projects are large and extended, while others are quite small. Our record is five houses in one day! Right now, we are finishing up a large two-story house and carriage house on 44th street. The owner has been so excited to see her home restored.

We do our very best to make everyone happy, and I like getting to know my customers—who are often also my neighbors. I always ask people about their line of work and find their answers fascinating.  A lot of clients have exotic jobs, from a secret service agent who protected a president to a prominent New York ad executive.

I also enjoy seeing customers’ design choices. Bright or light, coastal colors are always popular but so are color schemes that were in vogue when the house was first built. For instance, one couple researched their home’s history and decided to replicate its rich palette, choosing deep green, warm yellow, and dusty pink for adjoining rooms. Most of all, I love being able to work on the unique architecture of historical homes.

My favorite things to paint are doors and fireplaces because customers like to go really wild with the colors. After working on so many homes, I believe the builders created a unique fireplace for each home. Once, a customer asked me to restore and paint a fireplace a bright plum color and then called me later that night to come back to change it to red! It was pretty funny. One of the hardest jobs was to take black trim and white walls and ceilings and reverse the colors to white trim and black walls and ceilings. Each day is its own little adventure.

While painting my neighbors’ homes in Ardsley, I also enjoy working with my wife to fix up our own. When we bought the house more than three years ago, it had been neglected for a long time. After lots of renovations and (of course!) painting, we are now working on the landscaping. We have planted bottlebrush trees, a peach tree, and jasmine to complement the azaleas that have grown here for decades. We have also set up birdfeeders, a birdbath, and bird houses; this is the second year that bluebirds have nested and we’ve been able to watch the babies grow up. We are lucky to live in such a lush environment. My goal is to restore homes so they can complement that natural beauty all around us.