Family Business Evolves, Transforms

Steve Primiano's livelihood is truly a family business.

His grandfather, Antonio Primiano, was only 10 years old when he and his family immigrated from Italy in the late 1800s. The family settled in Warren, and when Primiano was a young man, he met and married a young woman from Barrington, Elizabeth Bryden, whose family had a big farm on Sowams Road.

The Primianos had five children. When their youngest son was born in 1920, they named him Wetherell, after the fort where Antonio and their family doctor had both been stationed in World War I.

Wetherell fared better than two of his siblings, one of whom died of influenza and the other after falling out of a tree. When he was a young man, he headed off with many of his fellow countrymen to fight in World War II.

The same year that Wetherell was born, Antonio Primiano had started a painting business, and when Wetherell returned from World War II, father and son decided to go into business together. In 1949 they opened a paint, wallpaper, and glass store on County Road, where TD Bank is now located.

That same year, Steve, Wetherell’s oldest son, was born to him and his wife, Barbara. Then two more children -- another son and a daughter.

In the 1950s, Antonio turned the store over to Wetherell, although he continued to work there for him. In 1967, Wetherell moved the store to a location at 211 Waseca Ave., and in the early 1970s, Steve and his brother joined their father in the store.

By that time, the store was also selling window treatments, including draperies, as well as offering painting services, and Barbara had also joined the family business, first as a bookkeeper and later in customer service.

According to Steve Primiano, the 1970s were really about selling a complete experience for those in the decorating industry.

“We introduced carpets in the store not long after I started, and we had more of a decorating focus,” said Primiano.

“We were basically selling color and texture back in the 1970s and early '80s,” he said. “People knew us as Primiano’s Decorating Center back in those days.”

Primiano said that after a few years of working in both the store and the painting company, he gravitated toward the store, taking it over when his father retired in 1985. Although Wetherell retired from the business, Barbara stayed on in the store, a popular member of the sales staff until retiring in 2008.

Primiano married his sweetheart, Janice Johnston, the year after he took over the store. The couple settled in Barrington, and have two sons, Gregory, 22, who works in the mortgage industry, and Eric, 20, who is at the University of Richmond studying finance.

Steve’s brother took over the painting business, which he operated for another decade, before deciding to work in facilities management for an area hospital.

Steve Primiano stayed with the store, but in 1998 decided to get out of the paint business altogether, making the focus primarily wallpaper, window treatments, and carpet. Constantly evolving made it easier for Primiano to keep his business healthy, he said, “when the world fell apart” in 2008.

He had already made the decision earlier in the year to focus primarily on window treatments and decorating fabrics, and shortly before the economic collapse of 2008, had closed the storefront on Waseca Avenue and begun working from home and out of his vehicle.

Since then, Primiano has made it his primary focus to bring a sense of harmony and comfort to the homes that he works on.

“I enjoy transforming a room,” he said. “Even the simplest treatments can completely transform a room. It’s exciting and gratifying to make happy customers.”

Primiano is a "Showcase Priority Dealer" for Hunter Douglas, a premier manufacturer of blinds and shades. The designation means that Primiano has to meet very high standards, including frequent training.

Although Primiano focuses primarily on window treatments, he is also willing and able to provide upholstery and carpeting services for his clients, who come from throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

As a small business owner, Primiano has a vested interest in being successful within Barrington. As the head of the Republican Town Committee, he said, he’d like to see some changes to the laws governing businesses in town.

“We’d like to look at all the ordinances that pertain to business and see what we can do to streamline them and make them more business friendly,” he said.