Today we’d like to introduce you to Cherylyn Apking.
Cherylyn, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in a navy family, always moving from place to place, always dealing with my father being gone for long periods of time, which was hard on my mom and my family. Though my father had a good job, I always knew that financially there were always challenges. I remember how tight my parents had to be with money & how hard they worked at making sure all the bills were always paid. Both my parents came from very poor backgrounds, so hard work & being resourceful was a must.
I remember always thinking to myself that I had to find a way to not go through that struggle, and in turn, help my parents in any way that I could. They always provided for me a roof over my head, food on the table & clothes on my back, but they were also always tired and worn out. I wanted them to be able to rest & enjoy life.
Times got even harder as my parents ended up getting a divorce & my father passing away not too long after that. My mother had to go back to work & provide for three children. It was not easy.
The moment I got out of high school I was ready to take on the world. While my friends enjoyed their youth, I was done, ready to do something, anything, to prepare for my future. My family didn’t have any money to send me to college or provide me with a car or any type of allowance, I was on my own. My husband (then boyfriend at the time) found some opportunities in Naples, Florida working as a painter for a company that painted huge mansions.
Knowing that if I stayed in San Diego I would be distracted by friends and party life, I decided to leave with him. With a few hundred dollars in my pocket and two suitcases of clothes and belongings, I left San Diego and moved to Florida. I didn’t know what I was going to get myself into, but one thing was for sure, I never wanted to end up working for anyone, I wanted to be my own boss, and run my own business one day.
I worked odd jobs to get by, retail, nail technician & even as a waitress. My husband too, worked a few jobs, painter by day, waiter by night. One day my husband came home and showed me pictures of homes he was painting, he was showing me walls that other decorative artists would paint in different styles and textures. He was so inspired. He said, “I could totally do this, I know I could, and I know that I could come up with so many different types of finishes, and people pay good money for this”. Given that both he and I have artistic backgrounds I said, “absolutely!” if these people could do this & make good money, I knew that if he and I put our heads & creativity together that we could really make great things happen.
So we just went for it. I researched how to start a business, what were all the documents needed to do so and such. I took classes on how to start a decorative painting business, while my husband took classes from decorative artists & played with paint and practiced different finishes on walls and such. You should have seen our apartment, there were taped off squares of so many patterns, textures, and colors. He practiced every chance he could & I studied the business end of things the best that I could. We had zero experience in running a business, it was a lot of hard work but we did it, at age 20 & 21 we started our own business.
Once we were established, we started advertising and started getting small jobs mostly from friends or friend’s friends to start off with. We still had to keep our regular jobs to pay the bills, but slowly we were growing and gaining clientele. I used to paint side by side with my husband but we started to get so busy that we ended up hiring a team to help with the paint jobs, while I worked on all the office end of things, paperwork, dealing with clients, marketing, bookkeeping, so on and so on. It was truly a hands-on learning experience in running a company.
There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of success as well. With all the money we were making we continued to reinvest in our business, hiring more help, opening our own studio, buying necessary tools, products, continued taking classes to keep up with the latest trends and such, which we had to travel a lot of times for. In reality, we really didn’t pay ourselves (my husband and I) for a good three years. And once profit started to come in and we were at a place where we could financially be secure in running a business as well as paying for our bills, we finally said goodbye to our other jobs. We were finally at a place where we were our own bosses and worked for ourselves, I was even able to finally really help provide for my mom so she didn’t have to work anymore. It was an amazing accomplishment for us.
Soon after, along with providing decorative painting services for clients, we started a school to teach other artists different finishes so that they may start their own business, we even opened a store selling decorative paints, products & tools. We expanded our studio into a showroom/school and also invested in a warehouse to stock all the items we sold. Along with all of this, my clients (the ones who’s homes we actually painted & serviced) always seemed to need guidance with color & design ideas, it was a job for me that fit hand in hand considering all the experience I’ve gained in working in many homes I was able to grow a natural eye for it. I soon became an interior designer/decorator & color specialist on the side for my clients. As we continued to grow, my husband and I started to feel the exhaustion of running a company, we were so busy that we were literally overworking ourselves.
Out of the blue I got pregnant with twins, and I knew that this was a sign to slow down. I also, always knew that once I became a mom, that I wanted to be hands-on, I wanted to be the one to raise my children and not have to go to work and have to hire a nanny or put them in daycare. This was very important to my husband and I. I feel super blessed to have been financially secure to be able to have done that. So I left the business to focus on raising a family. I still helped with paperwork & bookkeeping here and there, always helped my husband oversee things to help with certain decisions and such, but my main job was to be a mom, the best mom that I could be. And twins are a lot of work! Lol.
My husband too wanted to start gearing away from the physical labor of painting people’s homes and simplify his workload. So we sold our company and started another called 360 Coatings. This is a specialty paints company, we sell unique paints such as a soundproof paint that reduces sound up to 60% in a room as well as a paint that can turn any flat surface into a dry erase board. Working with a few partners we established our headquarters in California. To which required a lot of travel on my husband’s end. So we started to plan for living bicoastal from California to Florida, but then we were struck with devastating news.
Right after my twins turned three, we found out that one of them was diagnosed with leukemia. This shook us to the core. For three more years, my son had to undergo treatments to fight his cancer and it was one of the hardest things my husband and I had ever had to go through. Because of this, we couldn’t live bicoastal, I honestly was ready to leave Florida, but couldn’t because of my son’s treatments. So this time was hard on us as a family because now I was a full-time mom, my husband ran his business full time which required a lot of traveling coast to coast all the while having to take care of our sick son and his twin brother.
We pulled through and so happy to say that my son beat his cancer, in remission and both boys are healthy & strong. We decided to finally move back to San Diego, Ca for good, to be closer to our families and to ease the travels for my husband to run our specialty paints business.
Within all this time, even going way back to when I was a child, I’ve always had a love for many different types of arts, but most & specially photography. I started SweetChery Photography and did a lot of photography on the side for people, mainly focusing on portraits in natural light. My main focus though, has always been my children. I even had one more, another son. But still, as an artist, I always have a need to feed my soul creatively. Photography was my outlet to do so.
Now that all three of my boys are in school I am able to focus more on growing my photography businesses. I have a lot of other creative plans for the future and can’t wait to start bringing them to fruition. One thing I’ve learned from business is that if you don’t enjoy what you do, you will have a hard time enjoying life. And within work & life, there must be a balance to keep you well rounded and whole, to keep you going, to give your time more value, appreciation & fulfillment.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
360 Coatings: a specialty paints company with two very unique paint products:
1.“Remarkable” – turns any flat surface into a dry erase wall, a clear dry erase coating
2. “Serenity” – reduces sound in a room up to 60%, waterproof, seals mildew & lead
Photography:
1. “SweetChery Photography” – Natural light photography focusing on portraits and really trying to capture one’s essence. I also like to focus on eyes and having a natural landscape as a setting. “SweetChery Photography” focuses more on family, children, engagement shoots.
2. “Mayaa Photography” – This is my other photography business that I started more recently, where I do a lot of my creative shooting, mostly styled & artistic shoots, also using natural light.
I decided to divide my Photography business into two separate businesses because I was starting to get more requests for “sexier” photos from my clients. I didn’t want to offend any parents of children that I was shooting or give them the impression that my Mayaa Photography portfolio was too “sexy” to include their children’s photos.
So SweetChery Photography is very family-friendly & Mayaa Photography is sexier (but tasteful) yet more for a grown audience.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
I credit my husband, Linh Lam. We have grown & been through so much together in life, love, family, art & business. Having him by my side as my partner through it all has been an amazing ride. He supports my ideas & pushes me to go after my goals. He is so many things to me, but mostly, my love & my best friend. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today or who I am without him.
Contact Info:
- Website: 360coatings.com / sweetcheryphotography.com & mayaaphotography.com
- Phone: 1-800-936-2159 (360 Coatings)
- Email: chery.1122@yahoo.com (SweetChery Photography) / mayaacherylyn@gmail.com (Mayaa Photography)
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweetchery/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/mayaa.cherylyn/
Image Credit:
ALL photos photographed & styled by yours truly, SweetChery Photography & Mayaa Photography
(photos from portfolios)
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