When Tonia Thiel began painting, it was a stroke of luck.
Thiel, of Sidney, launched The Happy Painter, specializing in interior paint jobs as well as exterior and outdoor work, in 2019.
“I was in the professional world, and it was only because I worked with a lot of contractors in my life that I started painting for them, because they needed extra help,” she said. “I lost my professional job and, even though I have a four-year degree and a lot of experience, I couldn’t get hired. I was working in sales, and I sold electronic security equipment to banks. A friend said, ‘Why don’t you be a painter?’”
Thiel said her business name grew from her approach to the work.
“Here I am, this mature woman and it’s literally the third career I’ve had in my life,” she said. “But it was a bunch of contractors that gave me this name. They said, ‘You come on the jobsite and you’re happy every day, you should really name yourself The Happy Painter.’ I couldn’t come up with something myself, so I owe it to those folks who gave me the title.”
Though Thiel said she favors interior work, she “loves to paint anything.”
“I really specialize in interior — that’s just my favorite and I don’t have to get on a really tall ladder — but I will do exterior,” she said. “I do a lot of deck work, and some folks are into actually painting their cement driveways or sidewalks and I love to do that stuff. I love to do stenciling. You can really jazz stuff up that way. I like to be creative. You might want to give the interior or exterior of your home a facelift, and there’s just fantastic ways to do that with paint.”
Thiel said jobs, too, are a blend.
“I do commercial stuff and residential,” she said. “I’ve had the pleasure to work with a lot of contractors, so I really do work anywhere from Binghamton to Cooperstown. I do a lot of work in the Oneonta area. I never want to limit myself; if people want something special done, I want to do it and I’m happy to drive the distance. If someone wants just a bedroom or a bathroom done, I’m happy to do any job, big or small.”
Customers, Thiel said, have been “super happy.”
“I feel like I’ve been super lucky (because) they have had nothing but nice things to say,” she said. “Up until now, I haven’t advertised; I’ve never needed to, it’s just been word-of-mouth, and I take that as a compliment itself. I jumped on Facebook because my friends were encouraging me to show people some of the things I can do. Or, I would meet people and they’d say, ‘I haven’t ever heard of you,’ so it urged me to go public and show people options.
“I’m one of those HGTV junkies,” Thiel continued. “I try to be trendy … but I think people think they have to limit themselves. When it comes to a person’s space and colors and ideas, there really are no limits. I get a lot of pleasure from not only seeing the work done, but making something that somebody wants. You can make a statement — ‘I live here, and this is gorgeous.’ I get the most feedback when I do something on the bold side. And when someone is in love with a room and it’s all about them, you can do a lot of stuff to customize a space for someone. I get the most gratification from a customer feeling that way when the job is done.”
Though Thiel said she is booking into summer, she said she is “absolutely” accepting new customers.
She said she “just wants to keep on keeping on.” She said, too, that she’d like to “help new homeowners buy a house they can afford and rehab it into the home they want, instead of buying the perfect home they can’t afford.”
“I hope that there’s this rash of people who want to do something different and make their spaces for themselves,” she said. “I think, since COVID, we’ve all gotten a glimmer of how important our homes are and feeling escape or serenity within our homes, and I want everyone to achieve that within their homes and I think the cheapest way is with painting.
“Sometimes, when I roll out of bed, I’m like, ‘Oh, god, I’m 50-something,’ and the joints are speaking back to me,” Thiel continued. “But, my whole life, I’ve been an athlete and that was one of my biggest a-ha moments, when I went from a traditional desk job to a physically demanding job: I love being physical during the day and I keep my body in shape because of the physical demands of this job. It’s just being passionate about turning someone’s space into something they love, because we own our homes forever. Even when I work with landlords and we upgrade a space, there’s just a lot of happiness that goes with that and we need that. There’s a lot of joy to be had out of this profession.”
For more information, find “The Happy Painter” on Facebook or call Thiel at 607-353-0372.