The History of the Roller Cover, Part 1
Transcript:
Do you know who the father of the DIY home decorating movement is? I’m Dan Hansen and this is a Minute at RepcoLite.
If you came up with some possible names for the Father of the Home Decorating movement, I’m pretty sure that Canadian Norman Breakey wasn’t on your list. And I’m really not sure if anyone else would label him as such. But I do . . . and here’s why:
Even though he doesn’t TECHNICALLY get credit for it, Breakey seems to have been the inventor of the Roller Cover.
It started in 1940 when he had an idea for a way to apply paint more quickly. Up until that point, paint was applied by brush–no matter how much painting had to be done. And of course, with that being the case, the people who applied the paint were professional painters. Few non-painters ever tried painting in their homes–it was too complicated.
Then, Breakey comes out with this roller cover idea–a cardboard tube with very short carpet glued to it and the DIY home decorating movement was born. Now, you would think with success like that, Breakey struck it rich. Well, not really. And that’s because there’s more to the story. And we’ll talk about that next time. I’m Dan Hansen and that’s a Minute at RepcoLite.
