We’re 30 years old!
The world has changed a lot in 30 years, and so have we.
From humble beginnings with a single ute, a couple of trestles and a travelling caravan, Grant Painters has become one of Queensland’s premier commercial painting outfits.
Now with fully equipped branches in Mackay, Townsville, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, as well as Adelaide, we’re thrilled to be celebrating our first 30 years – with many more major milestones to come.
A way up from step ladders: Grant Painters now has a fleet of nine specialist spider lifts.
From step ladders to spider lifts
We are the spider lift crew.
Home to one of the largest fleets of these specialist elevated platforms in the country, we’re at the forefront of technology changing the face of commercial painting.
We take on the jobs that most painters won’t touch.
But it wasn’t always that way.
“We’ve still got our first eight-foot step ladder,” says Grant Painters owner Stuart Grant. “We bought it so we could cut in the tops of the walls of the 11-foot ceilings in Mackay’s historic TAFE building in Alfred Street when we were starting out.”
Fast forward to today and we’ve recently taken delivery of our ninth spider lift, a Cela 350.
With a reach of 35 metres (or 12 storeys), it’s fair to say it goes a little better than the old eight-foot ladder.
“We now have a spider lift for every situation across our branches,” says Stuart.
“They can get into places traditional booms and cherry pickers can’t. Originally developed for painting the interiors of European cathedrals, they’re still in their infancy here in Australia however.
“One of their main advantages is that they fold up into a footprint around the same width as commercial self-propelled mower – which means they can squeeze through doors, gates and openings you just wouldn’t think possible.
“They’ve then got ‘legs’ that open out like a spider to provide stability for their incredible reach.
“They’ve certainly opened up new opportunities for us because it’s a niche most other painters would prefer not to get into.”
Above: Chelona State School was Grant Painters’ first-ever project.
10,000-plus jobs and counting
Building on a proud 60-year family painting tradition, Grant Painters has now successfully completed more than 10,000 jobs.
Along the way we’ve picked up a ton of Queensland Master Painters awards, including an inaugural excellence in commercial painting award for our $600,000 rejuvenation of Daydream Island – significant also because it marked a switch in our focus to commercial and industrial projects.
Painting a family affair: Amy, Malcolm and Patricia Grant on the job at Daydream Island, and right, news of the award-winning project as it appeared in a Bristol Paints magazine.
Applying a massive 13,000 litres of coatings, Bristol Paints consultant Peter Avery said at the time that it was one of the most challenging jobs he’d been involved with in 25 years in the industry.
Since then we’ve worked on numerous other resorts as well as multi-storey apartment blocks, shopping centres, retirement facilities, government buildings, as well as the Mackay sugar refinery and mining sites.
Painting ‘in the blood’
The Grant family is steeped in painting, with Stuart’s father Malcom and mother Patricia – one of Queensland’s first female trade-qualified painters – an integral part of the team for the first 25 years.
Grant Painters evolved out of MG Grant & Company, initially based in the small south-western township of Miles, and later Toowoomba.
In the past 30 years, we’ve employed hundreds of staff, including apprentices.
One of those former apprentices – James Pike – now runs our highly successful Townsville and Brisbane-Sunshine Coast branches.
Developing staff is a priority: Former apprentice James Pike is now a manager of two branches.
“At Grant Painters we believe that relationship-building is one of the keys to a successful business – with your customers, their teams, as well as your own staff,” says Stuart.
“Developing our staff has been a priority for us and it always will be.
“We’re extremely fortunate to have in place a great team of managers and painting staff right across the business.
“It’s one of our core values and it’s why we’re intending to be around for another 30 years.”
Flashback to 1992
- It’s easy to think mobile phones have been around forever, but the world in 1992 was vastly different place. The first SMS message, for example, wasn’t sent until December, 1992 – a month after Grant Painters opened for business
- Early adopters of digital technology, the staff carried around with them a Nokia bag phone and mobile fax machine in their ute – which “nobody could believe at the time”, according to Patricia
The team was constantly on the road, camping in caravans. One of the steel boxes in the tray of their ute housed a purpose-made filing cabinet – meaning the vehicle truly was a mobile office