Katie Coffey

Katie is General Manager of our Niskayuna location and brings as much joy to her work as she does experience.

“The best part of my job is the environment we have created for our customers and for the people who work here. It’s a fun and easy place to be and that makes it much easier to talk to people and find out how you can help them,” she says.

Katie’s professional paint career started in college, interning and then working part-time at Sherwin Williams. After graduating with a marketing degree from SUNY Oswego, she continued full time with the company, eventually managing a store in New York City.

Now a valued member of the Colorize family, Katie (who loves paint and the paint business but ironically, considers herself an awful painter!) applies her expertise and enthusiasm to working with customers every day.

“There are a lot of little things that people don’t always think about when starting a project. We can make sure they have everything they need along with complete instructions. And if we don’t know something, we have plenty of resources to get the answers they need.”

Current project on the go:My husband and I bought a new home in October 2017 so we have endless projects. Right now, I’m working on refinishing some bedroom furniture while we wait to finish painting the exterior of the house (see question below). One of these days, I hope we’ll get around to refinishing the kitchen cabinets too.

A paint job I’m especially proud of is: The outside of our house. So far, we’ve painted the vinyl siding, whitewashed the brick and painted the shutters. We still have more to finish, but the house already looks fresh and new again. It was a quick fix with a big impact.

My favorite product to work with: Benjamin Moore’s Aura Matte. We used it to paint our home’s interior and it was by far the easiest product to work with (the easier and faster = the better in my books!). In fact, it took only one coat to cover most spaces and I’ve scrubbed the kitchen walls with no issue to date.

For my money, the best paint tool a homeowner can invest in is: An extension pole. Even if you’re going to paint just one room, handing on to that little roller handle can be tiresome and make the job take so much longer.

The designer I’d love to spend a day with: I’d choose one of our own designers. I think it would be fun to design a room or a whole home with fabric, tile, accent pieces, etc. and be able to pick out more than just the paint colors.

If I could describe myself as a Benjamin Moore paint color, it would be: Upper West Side CSP-70. My husband and I lived there and had the time of our lives. It’s our absolute favorite place and we even painted one of our new home’s rooms that color. Retirement goals!