Business & Tech

A Look at Babel's Paint & Decorating in Canton

The following is written by Jeff Sullivan of Patch:

Vick Babel Sr. started Babel’s Paints more than 60 years ago on Washington Street in Norwood.

Since that time, they’ve moved their location, opened three other stores in Canton, Foxborough and Needham and expanded their building.

“It was originally just a 400 square-foot store on Washington Street,” said Jeanne Babel. “He was a paint chemist working for a big corporations and decided he didn’t like the corporate life. He decided to become an entrepreneur and started his own business.”

Jeanne and Vick Babel (Jr.) currently run the store now.

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“It was in the 70s that my husband and I got involved,” she said. “In 1980,  we decided instead of renting he wanted to buy a building.  This was Peterson Catering back then and they were selling the building.”

She said the original building was half the size of what it is today. She said it was her father-in-law’s values and hard work that paved the way for them now.

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“All of those values have followed us along and they continue to work for us today to make us successful,” she said.

While the building now is big enough for their purposes, the couple did notice it had one problem: no windows. So they decided to put a mural on the front of it to make it more inviting

“This building was pretty boring,” Jeanne Babel said. “It’s 10-years-old and this is the second time we’ve done it. We wanted to make a boring concrete building look like it has windows, and that’s been really good. People see us and a lot of people park here to go downtown.”

Babel said the business is dependent on the housing market. She said they have painters always coming in to get their supplies for commercial and residential work. She said throughout the 1990s they expanded and opened more stores, the first of which was in Needham.

“That’s where I’m from originally and I thought a business like ours would do really well there,” she said.

Babel said they opened the Canton store next and then their Foxborough location.

“In Foxborough, there was just kind of a big void there,” she said. “There was no Benjamin Moore dealer and we had an opportunity to go into a great mall there. It was originally the Bradley’s Mall, but they moved out and it got deader and deader, so we moved across the street to Chestnut Green. We’ve been there for five years in December.”

Babel said eight years ago they moved into Canton.

“We feel like the housing market is getting better,” she said. “I gauge the economy by the contractors, it they’re busy and they have jobs for the next six months we feel that’s a good sign for the economy.”

Babel said they do a lot of paints, but one of the things they will do is come out to a customer’s house with paint swatches.

“Color always changes with light,” she said. “We always tell you it’s going to look a little different in your house because of lighting. We have designers that work here and go out to your home to select the color at your house.”

Babel said they donate to many local organizations, including the recent St. Catherine’s School 5K Race, the post prom party at the high School and the holiday house tour.

“That’s why small business is good for the community, because we live here,” she said. “We really feel our responsibility as a business in the town is to support the community.”

Babel’s in Canton is located on 102 Washington St. and is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 7 a.m. - 6 p.m.; Thursday, 7 a.m. - 8 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m - 5 p.m.; and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.


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