About Kirby & Kirbyworks

In the Beginning

Kirby started his painting career while still in high school. He worked as the maintenance man at a retirement home in Shelton, Washington.  His career was interrupted for a few years by a couple of college degrees, work, a wonderful wife, and five awesome kids.

After working at the Legislature in Olympia and moving to Kennewick he got back into painting. The building boom was just heating up so Kirby and a friend answered an ad for painters for a large housing development at the north end of Road 44 in Pasco.  They gave Kirby and Vlad a house to paint. They liked the results so kept throwing more houses at them to paint.  This created the need for up to nine painters to keep up with the demand from that builder and other builders in the area.

Market Changes Favored What Kirbyworks Had to Offer

The housing boom of the early zeros turned into a bust around 2008.  Work dried up for contractors and tradesmen.  This was the best thing to happen to Kirbyworks Painting because it forced them to not rely on new construction. Instead they concentrated on residential repaints which they had already begun doing.

Many painters were used to competing only on price and speed while in the new construction market. They could not offer discriminating homeowners what they needed. Kirbyworks has been able to offer quality work and customer care that has set them apart from the others. They won’t say they are the best – they’ll let their happy customers say that.

When Kirby Doesn’t Work

When Kirby isn’t managing his painting business he enjoys biking and hiking, and designing houses and websites. He also likes writing theology books and providing leadership in the Organic Church Movement in the Tri-Cities and in Africa, primarily in Kenya. He and Karolyn also carry on a tradition started by his parents in Shelton – having one of the nicest back yards in town.  It’s a gorgeous oasis in the middle of the Columbia Basin desert.