Granite State Painters has it down to a science.

By Kevin Hoffman

Cole Martin doesn’t hesitate when asked what sets Granite State Painters apart.

“There’s a lot of guys that ‘play’ cabinet repainting, and they don’t do it full-time,” he says. “This is what we do.”

Based in New Hampshire’s Seacoast, Granite State Painters has made cabinet refinishing not just a service offering, but a specialty. It’s a high-output operation with a specialized team, custom-built cabinet shop, and a reputation that allows them to be, as Martin puts it, “probably the most expensive company in the area.”

Granite State’s cabinet division consists of three full-time team members whose entire job is fine finish work on cabinetry. The system is highly structured and built on repetition, documentation, and a clear workflow.

“We’ve done over 300,” Martin says. “You do something over and over and over again at a high level, you can do it pretty quickly. We have that process so dialed in that we can nail it every time.”

Hire and Train

Matthew Johnson, the owner of Granite State Painters, has a very simple approach to hiring.

“I don’t care about skills,” Johnson says. “I can’t teach you how to be a good person, but I can teach you how to paint.”

Johnson places ads through employment sites like Indeed. Of more than 100 responses, he typically whittles the pool down to less than a dozen interviews. He says it’s pretty easy to spot the people who have a good heart. When he does, he shifts into sales mode.

“I’m trying to sell them on the company,” Johnson says. “‘Hey, this is a great place to work. These are the reasons why you can work with us. We’ll teach you this.”

The first two weeks are a litmus test on whether they’re the same person they were in the interview. Do they show up on time? Do they listen to directions? Do they bring their tools and wear a uniform?”

But the biggest part of the evaluation is if they fit in with the team.

“If you’re an ass, we’ll show you the door pretty fast,” Johnson jokes. “We want a lively, upbeat, fun team to be around.

Julia Dyke, a 23-year-old who started on the cabinet team a year ago, said she was at first intimidated by it being a male-dominated industry, but the friendly atmosphere put her at ease.

“When I first walked in and saw Matt and Cole, they immediately reminded me of both my uncles, who work in the trade,” she said. “They just felt like my family members.”

Maddie Clark, 23, has learned so well that she’s now being trusted to train Julia and other new recruits.

“It’s really interesting seeing kind of the full picture on the other side of the coin, being the person who’s actually in that teaching role,” Clark says. “ I almost feel like the teaching process is just a continuation of the learning process.”

Coated in 2K

It’s clear that Granite State’s cabinet operation is built on good chemistry, both figuratively and literally. Martin and his team have spent years mastering 2K poly coatings, the high-performance, two-component systems that offer fast dry times and a high quality finish.

“I love coatings,” Martin says. “I’m a big coatings nerd.”

Specialty products have something of a steep learning curve. Two-component coatings require careful mixing, precise spraying, and an understanding of their chemical cure cycles. One momentary mistake can waste hundreds of dollars in product due to the short window before drying.

To minimize waste and maximize speed, the cabinet team sprays with hopper-fed Graco and Tri-C sprayers, using short 15-foot hoses to minimize loss of a material. That’s important because specialty coatings cost upwards of $100-per-gallon.

“What you pay in product, you make up in efficiency,” Martin says.

With drying times as short as 15 to 20 minutes, an enterprising crew can spray a second coat on the same day as the first. That quick turnaround, paired with consistent quality, gives Granite State a major edge.

Getting there required expensive mistakes and an obsession with getting it right.

“It’s a science experiment,” Martin says. “I didn’t really get that good marks in school in science, but I thought I could figure it out.”

Specialty Training

When Martin first started working with 2K systems, he admits that it was “very hard to learn… because no one had used it for six years ahead of me to teach me.”

But today, with years of refinement and a dedicated cabinet team, new hires don’t have to repeat those mistakes. In fact, Martin says the typical team member only takes a handful of months to learn the basics of the craft.

Maximilian Radniecki, a 25-year-old member of the cabinet team, is a good example. The four-year member of the cabinet team says that the culture really brings out the best in painters.

“It all comes down to the fact that this team is really dedicated to what we do,” Radnieki says. “We all love doing it and we all want to see every project end up a 10 out of 10.”