Twelve years ago, Alison Gregory and husband Steve decided they would pull up stumps in Sydney and seek a tree change.

Wanting to enjoy country life, while still being close to the city, they sought a “connected lifestyle region” and left Leichardt to start a new life in Gundaroo, just 30 minutes from Canberra. Back then, neither of them realised this move would lead to a unique and successful online business venture.

It began with moving into the new property.

“We’d gone from a 200-square-metre block in Sydney to 200 acres out here and it was wonderful. We started to fix things up and when it came to the kitchen, I decided it would look nice in a French Provincial theme,” Alison said.

“I’d been to France for training courses several times in my previous career and fell in love with all things French and wanted to bring this colour and style to our kitchen.”

But when Alison obtained quotes on having the kitchen redone, and they ran into tens of thousands of dollars, she took the bold step of doing it herself.

“I began by looking for furniture on eBay and found a big kitchen dresser that I loved; it had all the nice lines, the right carvings and shapes, but was boring plain pine timber so I decided to paint it.”

To acquire the necessary skills, Alison completed a furniture painting course and gave the dresser a complete French-style makeover, with creams, and whites, even adding authentic French hinges and door handles.

Before long, family and friends had seen the furniture transformation and asked Alison to apply her skills to their sideboards, tables, and cabinets too.

Meanwhile, she continued working on her kitchen.

“I brushed up on my carpentry skills and added nice French details like corbels and ornate cornices, then dressed things up with decorative panels and architrave boards.  Once everything was hand-painted and detailed it looked great.”

During the project Alison noticed that many of the paints that were recommended for this kind of work in online forums could not be bought in Australia. So she found an importer and began selling them online, both through a website, and Facebook.

That was five years ago, and since then her online business, which began in a kitchen and grew out of a hobby, has grown enormously.

She now sells a broad range of paints, accessories, and re-finished furniture to people all over Australia, using online transactions on her sophisticated and elegant website, as well as running painting courses in her shed, which is being transformed into a furniture studio.

“I just love this, it’s such an addictive hobby that I wanted to teach people how to do it themselves. They turn up at 9am with a plain piece of furniture, and by the time they finish at 4pm it’s been completely revamped and looks a million dollars.”

With her boundless energy and enthusiasm, Alison is constantly looking for new innovations.

“The next stage will be adding French country homewares to the website and I’m looking at importing the most gorgeous range of artisan paints from Europe. There’s nothing like it in Australia.”

Her family has been behind the business all the way, with 15-year-old Lachlan regularly helping with IT and furniture transport.

“Most of the time he enjoys it, but once in awhile he’ll screw up his face while lugging around a large piece of furniture and say: ‘Mum, can’t you choose something smaller?’”

“Looking back, I still can’t believe how this has all worked out. Thanks to technology I’ve been able to reach out to a community of people with similar interests all over the world and am fortunate to be doing something I love every day.”