Southern Living - May 2004

Sunny Up Your Walls

Southern Living
Mid Atlantic Living: People & Places
May 2004

Sunny Up Your Walls
Carolanne Griffith Roberts

Do you feel a creeping uncertainty every time you put paint-brush to wall? The “what am I doing?” fears, not to mention the “will I hate myself in the morning?” anxiety, are familiar to many.

Dede Davis shrugs at the thought. “It’s only paint,” she says reasonably. “Relax and have fun.” Her business partner, Sunny Goode, quickly adds, “I always compare painting walls to riding a bike-after you take that first trip around the block, you can do it anytime in your life. You just pick it up.”

With an earnest air of encouragement, Dede admits, “The first wall is the hardest. We tell people to practice on a board first. Or behind the door in you garage.”

The two women, who met at Hollins University in Roanoke while studying art, know their walls-and their colors, varied textures, stencils, and easy methods. After a career of painting decorative finishes for others, it struck Sunny to develop a product simple enough for the average person to apply at home with just an old cloth or simple brush.

Forecast Look Sunny
Sunny’s Goodtime Paint Products, based in Richmond, starts with a specially mixed can. Though it’s not on the label, the cans come with confidence too-or al least the assurance that you’ll get a personal answer if you e-mail your concerns. And Sunny’s DVD ($15)-a step-by-step guide of how to use the colors, create a stone block effect, to glaze, and to stencil-is also available to help. If you’re still tentative, there’s a 4-ounce tester of any color for $10 to $12, so you can try before buying the larger can $30 to $36.

For Sunny, who always mixed her own colors for clients, the whole business is a natural extension of customer needs. After her mention in a decorating publication, “People started calling from all over the country,” she says. “We didn’t even have to test-market the idea-we knew there was demand.”

But what did they know about business? “We learned as we went,” explains Dede. “It’s very different from having that artistic sense of gratification.” With help and advice from Sunny’s lawyer dad and land developer husband, the building blocks wedged into place in 2001, and satisfied customers kept sales moving. Sunny concocted paint colors and textures while her two-then three-children went to preschool. Dede, now the mother of a baby boy, put in countless hours of drudge and design.

It Started in Childhood
The two women look back at their early years and see glimmers of their entrepreneurial talents. “In the sixth grade I used to paint metal barrettes and sell them,” reports Sunny, who grew up in Atlanta and Chicago. “I’ve always know how to make things and turn them into a product.” Dede, a native Virginia, remembers staging her own art show in third grade. Yet the two came to their current endeavor by different paths.

For Sunny, this career move swept over her during dinner at a restaurant on Capitol Hill, where the wall treatments impressed her as much as the food. “I said, This is what I want to do.” My companion knew who’d done the painting and gave me her name.”

What ensued was story bookish, leading Sunny to an apprenticeship with the accomplished artist Nancy Baker. She then completed extensive course work at New York’s Isabel O’Neil School for the Art of the Painted Finish. Dede, in the meantime, worked in film, and the advertising, before hooking up with Sunny to learn the trade.

Where From Here?
Holding the two back seems to be the challenge these days. “We had tons of colors to begin with,” says Sunny, who learned color mixing at Isabel O’Neil. “We finally narrowed it down to 21-9 glazes, 0 color washes, and 3 aging patinas.” The palette is gentle yet hip, with titles such as Little Boy Blue, Lizard Lime, Palm Beach Pink, Ocean Age, and Sunshine Daydream. A 1-quart can covers a 10x12 foot room. Stencils-an eight-point star, palm, tulip, and irregular dot-expand the design possibilities.

When Sunny sees a need, she jumps in. For instance, the new Deck-o-Rator cards ($20) answer age-old problem with finesse. The 36 cards are made of clear acrylic, each one hand painted with her glazes, patinas, and combinations of those colors. “People would say things like What will Gator Green look like on my base coat?” – so it was a good puzzle to work out.

The Sunny’s work force-the founders along with assistant Lucy Ackerly-farm out product distribution and other cumbersome tasks so they can stay focused on the art form. They’ve developed kits (including a video, brush, quart of paint, and three stencils) for sale during their appearances on the shop-from-home channel QVC. That same kit may appear later in stores.

“Our mission statement is ‘to bring out the artist in everyone,’” says Dede. “It isn’t intimidating,” But in case you’re still unsure, check the Web site at www.sunnysgoodtimepaint.com for a list of upcoming demonstrations and stores or to e-mail your own personal question. “You’ll see how easy it is to use,” Dede says with promise.