HOULTON – A considerable donation, not of money, but of paint, is helping the town ready one of its key buildings for the upcoming bicentennial celebration.

At a meeting earlier this week, town councilors accepted the donation of an undetermined amount of paint from Boyett’s Floor Covering and California Paints.

The donation from the Houlton business will be applied to the town’s historic White Building, which houses the Greater Houlton Chamber of Commerce and the Aroostook Historical and Art Museum.

The town-owned structure sits on the outskirts of Market Square and was deeded to the community in 1944.

“We don’t know how much paint will be donated yet, because we don’t know how much it’s going to take to do the job,” Town Manager Douglas Hazlett said during the meeting. “But this is exceptionally nice of Boyett’s. This is a big donation, no matter how you slice it, for a building that size.”

Councilors voted last month to hire Dave and Jason Owens of Apex Painting Specialty to paint the historic building. Their bid was for labor only.

The Littleton firm will be paid $22,000 to scrape the structure and apply two coats of the donated paint. The project should be completed by mid- to late June.

The town had planned to paint the building last year, but those plans were thwarted after the price tag for the project came back substantially higher than officials had expected.

The bids ranged from $8,000 to $33,000.

Officials originally thought the cost of the project would be about $7,000.

The town opted to delay the project until it could sketch out exactly what needed to be done to the building and how the town would pay for it.

A number of residents lobbied hard to have the building painted before the bicentennial fete, saying the historic structure is a focal point of the community.

The town’s bicentennial celebration will be held Aug. 18-19, 200 years after Joseph Houlton and his wife, Sarah, founded the town.

Work on the White Building already has begun.