We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sheila Lehman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sheila below.

Hi Sheila, thanks for joining us today. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?

After years working as a decorative painter, mostly out on jobsites in homes, businesses and churches, the number of projects that were “things” that needed transformation with paint finishes and not “places”, started to increase. Clients had everything from furniture to signs to steel brackets and sound systems and lighting that needed very specialized paint finishes and color matching. Falling back on tons of experience with all kinds of paint, prep and repair materials and techniques helped me tackle all kinds of weird projects. It’s been years of constant learning, experimenting and creating. Constant learning about new materials and relying on my favorite tried and true tools. The more I worked, the more I realized that not many other people were doing this work.
Since lots of my work was inside churches, clients started to ask me to repair and repaint their statues. Wonderful to have a totally new challenge of repairing valuable and important statues for these churches and also private clients. I’ve always loved a good ‘before & after’, so to be able to take the broken pieces of a statue and rebuild the pieces of the puzzle to totally save it, has been very satisfying. For the past 12 or so years, clients have found me online and brought me their beloved heirlooms or even shipped them to me from all over the country. I have learned, and my clients tell me, that I am one of very few people doing this kind of work.
I don’t know if there is logic for success exactly, but rarity of a skillset for sure. And maybe that brings success.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’ve always had a great interest in interior design, and ended up finding a few courses at UCLA Extension with an excellent instructor on paint, plaster, faux and decorative finishes. After years of office administration work, I was looking for some freedom and independence, and took these courses with the plan to start doing this full-time. Years of hard work, trial and error, learning painting techniques and a huge variety of materials, and basically gaining experience from doing the actual work.
Services I provide for a wide range of clients: repair, restoration and specialty custom painting of furniture, decorative accessories, lighting, and of course statues of all kinds. Basically anything that needs to be transformed by paint. My clients bring me their damaged statues, or a family heirloom piece of furniture, or a great vintage find that they want transformed for a new use with a new style.
I also acquire unloved and damaged vintage furniture and decor (and some small statues too) to transform at my studio and sell online and at studio sale events throughout the year. Clients coming in with their projects often spend time looking, and shopping, at the wide variety of vintage items that I have!
What I’m probably most proud of is being able to repair a beloved family heirloom. Some of my clients are in shock and despair when their one-of-a-kind, often very old, devotional statue has been damaged. They are relieved to find me and overjoyed when their item it returned to them completely repaired and looking great! The before & after, side-by-side, photos of these projects kind of speak for themselves. People seem to love seeing them on my social media.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Happy past and current clients have been the best source for new clients. I started this profession in 1996 and for years, all of my new clients were simply direct referrals from former clients. This was before social media was much of a factor in getting the word out. Now it’s more of a mix of client referrals and people finding me online. It has been social media that has enabled clients from outside of Southern California to find me. The statue restorations in particular make great ‘before & after’ pics. The proportions of most statues are perfect to create a dramatic before & after collage in one frame. After I loaded dozens and dozens of these side-by-side collages onto my website and Instagram account, word spread and people from all over the country stared to contact me.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

It’s imperative to have an excellent work ethic, honesty, good communication skills, good organizational skills, cleanliness, punctuality and the talent to get the job done. In those early years of painting lots and lots of rooms inside lots and lots of client’s homes, I realized that homeowners were desperate to have quality people doing any work inside their homes. This was all easy for me because I simply treated their home as if it was my own home. They would marvel at how clean I made and kept my work area and how great the finished project looked. Building up lots of trust from my clients led to more clients. With the religious statues, from private clients and churches, I understand the importance and value of these pieces. My clients realize they can trust me with their beloved pieces.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.paintchangeseverything.com
• Instagram: La Porte Vintage
• Facebook: La Porte Vintage
• Other: https://www.laportevintage.com

Image Credits

Sheila Lehman