Best of Boston

1979 Best House Painters

Dick Umile and Ralph Deldon

Dick Umile (273-1279) and Ralph Deldon (272-2767) are schoolteachers who moonlight. They’ve been painting homes for five years, and as far as we can tell, they can do no wrong. They stick to interiors and smaller houses and prefer to work in the summer or on weekends. “We first started doing it for other teachers, and the word spread,” Umile says. “We’re probably more dependable than a bunch of college kids, as we’ve been around longer.”