In the spring of 1911, Alan J. Ayres and his son Tom start the Ayres Varnish Company in Vancouver. Its a humble beginning. The warehouse is a three square-metre cooking shed and the office is just as small. There is no electricity or plumbing.
Office lighting is provided by two stable lanterns, and the only water on-site is rainwater caught in large barrels. The city of Vancouver is in the early stages as well with just 137,000 residents.

With the development of the city, the company is also developing. In 1920, the company was renamed Ayres Varnish and Paint Company to reflect its expanded product range. In 1921, the first General Paint store was founded in Vancouver, Columbia, British. In July 1929, the fire caused by spontaneous combustion destroyed the main japanning works, and the tragedy occurred. Everyone invested in and replaced the damaged area.

The company's name was changed into Canada General Paint Company.

The development in our retail business has met the ever-increasing quality products. More stores have been established across the country, and customers are quickly becoming loyal in general coatings.

The number of our stores nearly tripled from 22 in 1979 to 65 in 1990. General Paint has further expanded, and its first store was founded in China.

General Paint launched the advertising-board campaign for "Lasts For Ages" of 3 years.

We applied for and obtained ISO 9002 certification. This high standard of manufacturing excellence has been maintained year after year, demonstrating that our products have met the highest quality standards in the industry. General Paint launched its first site of World Wide Web .

Professional Paint Inc.is a newly-established company that acquired General Paint and other three North American paint companies. Opportunities have been createed by this new local ownership  to improve synergies and interactions between the four companies. The new century brings us to the eastern Canada.  Five stores were established in Ontario.

We bought the ideal paints in Ontario. Ideal Coatings have been known for its contractor business in the Ontario market and has been in operation for 20 years. This acquisition has helped set the scene for general coatings and has maximized our potential to broaden our business.

Our experience and innovations have been recognized by Mexico 's largest paint manufacturer and the merger with Comex has been completed.

We launched a zero VOC paint production line called “Z-Coat”. General Paint is one of the first companies in Canada to launch a truly high-performance zero VOC product line without releasing VOC(volatile organic compounds). We entered Russia through a dealer agreement. Our first container was shipped in the winter of 2005. There are four general paint dealers in Russia, and they are still increasing.

We celebrated business of 95 years.

General Paint has launched the award-winning most advanced color system-ColorLife, to provide the unique color solutions for people who want to create an unparalleled environment. Complete color charts provide more than a thousand possibilities to try and express your creativity.

We have relaunched our website, including the use of the latest technology and easy navigation. This redesign meets the requirements of our customers for more information and a range of product systems.

A Century of Paint  We define ourselves as a successful and victorious company that has achieved in the paint industry with the greatest return for 100 years . "Realize dreams〜inherit heritage".

Our high-end CHOIMER Paint entered into the Chinese market. We established CHOIMER Paint ( China) Co., Ltd. to achieve the CHOIMER Paint and open stores in China.

In 2016, the high saturation and natural colors have been explored by the new color card system explores. It is divided into five color levels as follows: comprehensive white of W series of colors, high purity saturation and brightness of 1 series of color, soft saturation and brightness of 2 series of color, enhancement of neutral color elements in 3 series of color, and the gray tone of sky and ground in 4 series of color, which covers a variety of color fields.

In 2022, the gray series are based on the space of nature and the gentle colors of the 4 seasons among the natural earth color, black and white to add a variety of color choices between black and white gray, which expands the field of CHOIMER color library.