Custom work…and a sneak peek

I really enjoy painting furniture… REALLY enjoy it. I truly feel like I have found my passion in life. Taking something that isn’t wanted and turning it into something everyone adores is fun, it’s challenging at times and I love it all. Sometimes people ask me to take pieces they already own and recreate them. The challenge is thrilling. I call this custom work and I have a love-hate relationship with it.

I think it’s wonderful and fantastic and beautiful that someone I may or may not know likes my work enough to want me to permanently alter something they’re going to keep in their home. This also terrifies me… what if they hate it? what if I ruin it forever? (in the cases where I don’t know them already) what if they aren’t nice?

Gratefully I have yet to deal with someone who isn’t nice (hooray), and so far, I think they’ve all been pleased (if you’ve heard otherwise, please don’t tell me). I have also been blessed enough to have met some wonderful people in the same business who have the same thoughts. How refreshing to know I am not alone. I think everyone goes through similar feelings when they have deadlines and a responsibility to someone. “What if my boss hates this proposal?”, “What if the kids in my class get poor scores on the next test?”, “What if that family isn’t happy with the basement I just finished for them?”.

This is the project I am working on right now:

It’s really coming together nicely too.

Hopefully I will get the whole thing finished by the weekend.

How do you feel about custom work? (or whatever your own version of it is)