Late Mr. W N D Chandraratne, the founder of the Company, was an employee of both ICI and latterly Chemical Industries (Colombo) Ltd., with whom he worked for over a quarter Century. During this period, he specialized in paints, and was instrumental in, importing and marketing of ICI Paints from the UK, and subsequently the manufacture of ICI paints locally and marketing them very successfully.

During this period of time, it was found that there was an increasing demand for an organisation, which could install painting systems on a technical and scientific basis, and with this in view, he resigned from CIC in 1979, and founded this Company. Initially, located at his residence at Longden Place, Colombo, from where he operated.

The first major contract was the internal painting of the Lakspray milk factory at Welisara, way back in 1980/81, the contract value being Rs.3.8 million. The company progressed continuously from there, and since then has played a major part in the finishing of almost all large construction projects in the Island. From the field of painting, the company soon diversified its activities to waterproofing, too with the collaboration of a number of overseas partners for skill and technology transfer.

As the work load increased, the company needed new office space. This was done by constructing an upstairs to his residence. After some time even this office was proving too small for the work, and thereafter he successfully negotiated for a block of land with the Government Railway, on D.R. Wijewardena Mawatha, Colombo 10 where the new Office Complex now stands.

Late Mr.Chandraratne had a keen desire to see that the Company did not die with him, and therefore it was negotiated with CIC, his former employer, to acquire an interest in the Company, which was done in April 1992 with the acquisition of 60% shareholding by CIC Fertilizers (Pvt) Ltd. With the financial strength and stability provided by CIC and their assistance, the Company has grown from a turnover of Rs12.6M in 92/93 to Rs.70.6M in 99/2000, a 560% increase within seven years. With the anticipated major works & jobs in hand it is expected to expand at even a higher rate during the future years.

Also it has further ventured into new areas of business such as aluminium partitioning, cladding curtain walls and industrial flooring systems and has also developed a marketing division to sell D-I-Y products and painters tools.

Today N. Chandraratne Decorators (Pvt) Ltd. is the sole representative for a number of reputed manufacturers and suppliers namely; Hitchins (FE) Marketing Ltd (Singapore. for Vandex, Traffigard, Formdex etc., waterproofing systems and Sealflex for waterproofing/weatherproofing system, Shielders (UK) Ltd. for Premseal preformed membrane range, Conren International (UK) for Rooftex liquid membrane, Gulf Membrane Coating & Industrial WLL (Bahrain) waterproofing coatings and preformed membrane and Essen Supplements India Ltd. for Epoxy Flooring Systems. It also imports & sells painters professional tools from M/s Endstra of Holland and M/s Henan Animal By-products Corporation of China. The other principal suppliers are, SKK (S) Pte Ltd (Singapore) for architectural wall coatings, IEC coatings for Aluminium Extrusions and solid cladding panels, Seiko Glass for Composite Cladding panels ,Promat International Ltd. for passive fire protection solutions, and Chicago Metallic ltd. for suspended ceiling members and boards.