Paul Chalifour Painting Contractor

What Paul Chalifour's customers keep writing about isn't the finish coat — it's the prep underneath it. In April a homeowner described the crew repairing cracked horsehair plaster through a 110-year-old three-bedroom house before repainting the whole interior, started promptly and finished on schedule at the price quoted. A customer of 15 years put it plainly in an October 2025 review: painting is all in the prep, and that is what he judges them on. The business works out of 14 Main Street in Boxford and has been trading since 1987 by its BBB file, which lists it as a sole proprietorship under owner Paul Chalifour and has carried an A+ grade with accreditation since 2010. Interior and exterior repainting is the bulk of it, with cabinet refinishing, exterior trim repair and power washing on the same service list. Twenty-one reviews sit on file from 2024 through 2026, and the Google page averages 4.8 across 22 ratings. The jobs behind them are whole projects rather than touch-ups: ten rooms in five days in a January 2026 review; a 12-day exterior in Topsfield in October 2025, signed with the customer's name and town; kitchen and bath cabinetry repainted in four days that same month; marine-grade varnish colour-matched to an old pine stain on a screened-porch ceiling in June 2025; a fence and retaining wall stained this July. Customers name the foremen — Gilmar on some jobs, Alex on others — which usually means the same people keep turning up. Two things are worth raising before you call. The BBB file lists one employee, while nearly every review describes a crew working under a foreman, so ask who will be on your house and who is supervising. The one customer comment on BBB is printed with part of its text redacted and carries no star rating or date, so it tells you little either way. This is the crew for a whole-interior repaint, or an exterior where the trim needs fixing before anything gets painted — reviewers describe rotted trim panels and siding carpentry handled inside the paint job. Repeat hiring is the pattern: one reviewer writing in October 2025 was on a fourth engagement, another has had the same crew back over five years. Pin the scope, the crew lead and the schedule into the written estimate, and confirm which carpentry is included before the ladders go up.