BIOGRAPHY….WHO I AM
I’m Tom Stone, and I want to paint your house. I also want to become a friend to a satisfied customer who will contract with me again, refer me to friends, and say hello on the street. I started Puget Sound painting in l986, while I was completing a degree at WWU, in History and Journalism. I needed a way of supporting my wife and three children, while attending school with a full, but varying schedule.
Now, 24 years later, I have a masters degree, a teaching cert, and a fun and satisfying painting business. I have chosen to stay in Bellingham and be a painter, rather than move somewhere else and teach.
My kids are now grown, (I have 4 beautiful grandchildren) my wife is deceased, and i live with my two incredible cats, Peaches and Beans.
We live in a hundred-plus year-old house across from Bloedel-Donovan Park, where Lake Whatcom becomes Whatcom Creek. If you see it, you will notice that it is usually some bizarre colors (currently red, gold, and bright green) because I keep the guys busy in the winter painting it with leftovers.
Other interests include, but are not limited to fly fishing, chess, oriental philosophy, and western history (Idaho, eastern Oregon, Nevada). I also like to employ young people (often WWU students) while they complete their studies and move on to other things. Current employes include David Rauch, also a Tai Chi and Akido instructor (and soon to be a physical therapist, Paul Martin, who is putting his wife through WWU to be an elementary teacher, Ryan Vasak (part-time now; he got a job as a fisheries biologist for the Lummi Nation,) and Tom Conley. Tom has been painting since he was 12 years old, when he began helping his father, Tom, who is a retired Sehome High School teacher who painted houses in the summers.