Available; Northern, Central & Southern States, include WI/MI to PA to FL to TX to KS etc and all the square back to VA residing state. http://instagram.com/SteveNissley_iPaint
and
https://twitter.com/SteveENissley
Hello! "I-paint-4-u", 469-597-4585 PO Box 1062 Fishersville VA 22939
Hello, my name is Steve Nissley, a self-motivated entrepreneur, dependable professional interior painter
for over 35 years. I was born and raised in Virginia, but travel state to state as needed. I provide interior painting services in most "Northern, Central and Southern States", having painted in nearly 30 states so far, (accurate accounting prohibits travel reimbursements). It seems lately I have been mostly painting in NC, PA, OH, IN, IL, WI, and MI, but that could quickly change again. Until now, the four corners of my serving area so far have been from FL to TX to ID to MA, and it is likely to expand (MD, DE & DC Excluded). My residential interior painting services include the following states;
AL, AR, FL, GA, IN, KY, KS, LA, MA, MI, MO, MS, NC, NY, NYC, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WV
and my commercial interior painting services include the following states;
AL, AR, CT, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, ME, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, NYC, OH, OK, PA, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WI, WV, and WY
Painting has been my passion since age 4 when I helped my sister paint my bedroom, then as a school age child, soon I was very involved in painting toys, pedal cars, bicycles etc. As a teenager I enjoyed painting my dad’s rental property. Later, I began to wonder why I was limiting my potential by only painting for friends and relatives in my isolated Amish & Mennonite cultural farming community that I grew up in. It was the only life I knew. In deep thought I began to ponder the idea of turning my natural gift of painting into a career serving the greater community and continuing to spread the love further. In1987 then, I reluctantly yet eagerly left my secure farm life behind to establish a broader reach business of high-quality service. It was quite an adjustment to make, and I do miss farming, but life continues to get even better as I have served many, and though I'm not an active participant of the ultra-religious Amish & Mennonite community, I still enjoy the ongoing privilege of painting for them too. When friends suggested expanding my business outside my local county, eventually I was convinced and made my service available to more customers anywhere in VA and then later in OH, PA, and NC and began to majorly expand in 2010 to further develop it into a over the road interior painting venture, it has now grown into most Northern, Central and Southern states. At some point a few local builders had requested me to add commercial painting to my services offered, they refused to take my adamant “no” for an answer. The rest is history, I’m glad I did it, eventually this also grew to other states, painting for numerous construction companies. Long story short, this has resulted in an ongoing commitment with a construction company up north since 2015, I’ve been sent to a multitude of commercial painting projects scattered in about a dozen states, and am thoroughly enjoying my state-to-state travel adventures,
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Some of you have been asking me to write a book about my experiences of traveling over America in conjunction with my cross country painting service. Until I do, the following short version in a nut shell of my travels nationwide will suffice, as continued in story form combined with numerous other adventures along the highways. This may or may not be of interest to some of you
While on the road my recreational hobbies have also included nature tours, hikes, climbing mountains ( and not to forget the climbing of our beloved Humpback Rocks in my VA home town mountain ) and walking beaches, or merely sitting and thinking for hours while in observation enjoying the water at the lakes, creeks or rivers in the woods or public dams or indulging in a few leisure hours at state, city, national or country parks. And often responding to coffee break requests randomly from friends who are also traveling through or living along the way, they get the spontaneous urge to meet up with me at a café or park.. I also get meetup requests from social media friends who have observed my travels on my posts or profile, and having seen my status updates as I am driving through the area sightseeing on my way to a painting project somewhere. In my travels I have had the pleasure of seeing Niagara Falls, Twin Falls, Great Ravines, Valley of the Gods, Grand Canyon, the Crater of Flagstaff, Yellow Stone, Death Valley, The Red Woods, Sequa Forrest, numerous Caverns, miles and miles of desert and so much more, and there is yet much more to see. So far on my camera is an overwhelming accumulation of over 40,000 pics. Is it possible to stop snapping the landscape? Also, every opportunity I get in my travels, I love attending some of the countless national conventions coast to coast for Ballroom, Swing or Latin dance competitions, with all night social dancing 9 pm to 6 am. I really enjoy the moonlight beach dances in the sand without dance shoes and the sunny pool parties. It's exciting to dance with champions from the US and other countries! It is also a pleasure on state to state basis, participating as a drop in to get to know more people at their local community dance socials and events or spontaneous dance party in someone's home. Being part of the kind and loving social dance community for twenty years has been a vital part of my recreational and social life for my well being. As with everything else in life, learning to dance takes relentless determination, perseverance, desperation, selfless commitment, time, and loyalty, but it comes with great reward and joy! It was a great honor as a local studio participant training in Charlottesville VA to perform in the chorographic show dance events for about 12 years. One time there were 8 of us coupled up, we performed live for the Lyons club at the downtown Paramount Theater, with about 1000 in attendance, and another time I was seen dancing on tv by accident. I had some extremely kind instructors training me relentlessly and intensively, learning dance in the long haul in mind may get overwhelming to the brain at times but I stuck with it. Your instructors eventually get to know you better than you know yourself. It has been a great privilege developing nurturing friendships,
that along with having danced with more than 10,000 partners across the country was a healing experience literally saving me from a deep heartbreak. It was a very difficult experience pushing through the grief that was heavy on me, but I am happy that I can now pay it forward. The gift of dance is yet another unique way to bring blessing to others and spreading God's healing love across the globe. Not only has dance opened up many wonderful opportunities to get to know a lot of good people, but I have been privileged to provide interior painting services at dance studios, and many dance 'participant's homes, I enjoy our "commonality". I love seeing clients smile when I paint a kitchen, dining room, kitchen cabinets, hall, entrance, living room, den, office room, bath, laundry, bedrooms, guest room, sun porch and other rooms. When non-dancers spontaneously dance a jig in happiness as a result of a freshly painted home, having learned dance myself it helps me realize more now that it had to be a genuine gestor of joy and satisfaction. The social dance scenario has presented unique opportunity as a nationwide community of friends bonding together in groups or individuals for occasional meetups, hikes, mountain climbing, dinner or coffee break at a restaurant or in a dance participant's home. We enjoy these small gatherings immensely, on a sorrowful note though, there have been funerals to attend in the dance community where we share the grief of loss. Although, it has also brought the shared excitement of attending weddings of dance friends where once again we share the joy of dance. But dancer or not, if you are one who enjoys the spontaneity of random coffee or tea breaks, shooting pool, bowling, hikes in the parks or mountain climbing and other social life activities or in fact a dance event or attending dance class or you can meet me as my guest at Planet Fitness or YMCA. We may want to meet up at the town park or out by the in the country highways and byways where we both may be traveling or perhaps in your local community with other activities of your choice or enjoy the sun or shade. Or we could just meet at a café and talk if some those things are against your liking or comfort zone or religious beliefs or church rules if you were raised in an ultra religious culture. I do understand the feeling, being raised in strict ultra religious culture myself in a diligent hard working farming family, life was tough growing up in such a restrained setting. But though my parents were born and raised Horse and Buggy Amish, I have never been pure Amish myself, but instead, I was
raised in the ultra religious "Amish Mennonite" environment. I was lucky to be raised slightly less traditional but still confusing. Amish Mennonite is a cross between Amish and Mennonites, it is also referred to as Beachy Amish, still being part of the old Swiss & German religious culture though that found itself at the bottom of Blue Ridge Mountain in the Fishersville and Stuarts Draft VA area, having re-located from VA Beach area. The movement originated in PA about a 100 years ago, a very religiously strict sect of the Amish and Mennonite Culture with black cars. They denied the authenticity of the horse and buggy Amish faith in distain and also shied back from more modern zeal of Mennonites in abhorrence, and ruled in a heavy handed domineering manner. We were so glad to eventually be free from it. In recent years I have been doing historical ancestral research of our ancient Amish heritage, tracking down historical Amish communities to search out ancestral graveyards coast to coast and chasing down long lost relatives all over the country to visit many whom I had never met. Including our bloodline, there are now about half million Amish in this country. Most of our Amish ancestry and others, sailed to the USA in mid to late 1700's and early 1800's from Switzerland. At the 2019 National Yoder Reunion in Shipshewana Indiana, I learned that our ancestry on the Yoder side had already sailed over here in 1718 before this country was even a nation. Then 236 years later in 1954 , my parents made that clean break from the authentic Horse and Buggy Amish 3 years after having moved to Virginia from the Dover Delaware. There grandfather was an Amish bishop, you can imagine his and grandma's fury! That was about 7 years before my birth. In the Amish and Mennonite Community there are 3 mini cultures, the "Horse and Buggy Amish", the Black Car "Beachy Amish Mennonite" and the "Mennonite", these 3 mini cultures are combined into one are 1 major cultures. However, the Amish and Mennonite religious culture as we've known it, seemingly doesn't necessarily include the ultra liberal groups such as "Virginia Conference Mennonite", or those who more recently affiliated with "World Mennonite", although back in the day when cars were invented, some of these groups also had religiously opposed acceptance of the "shiny wheels". This particular Amish and Mennonite community that we were meshed with was nestled in the Central Shenandoah Valley where I-81 and I-64 twine together. Stuarts Draft is the "HUB" of Augusta County VA. Being biased to this valley, we thank you for understanding why we feel very partial to the beauty here. If you designate an afternoon to take a picnic up on the Blue Ridge Mountain from Waynesboro and climb the Humpback Rocks, you will be delighted by the views. This scenic valley is about 30 miles wide and 100 miles long, the east of the valley is bordering the Blue Ridge Mountain. On the other side of the valley the Allegheny Mountains loom towards the western edge of VA near the West VA line. Many a tourist have stopped by from off the whizzing interstate highways and spontaneously purchased a lovely home, being breathtakingly imercserized in sheer awe of the rolling green landscape. In my opinion as a native here, this is likely one of the most beautiful farm countries in the entire world, I suppose you would love it too, but that's me. Having moved to Ohio and still later in NC, which I really loved, before moving to Texas for a few years, I was glad to return to my home stomping grounds, But I miss Texas in some ways and might possibly return there or to NC later, but don't bank on it. I just don't know if I can bring myself to leave one more time because I am still in such great adoration of these beautiful VA hills here in the lovely countryside surrounding the old famous farming community where I grew up among the Amish and the Amish Mennonites that used to be so prevalent. But oh those factories! In nearly 40 years now there have been no Horse and Buggy Amish here at all, as most of them moved westward, in part because of general population explosion after the factories moved in, a repeat of the move from VA Beach, the remainder of the group have since passed on to their reward. In later years the same scenario happened when the original Beachy Amish Mennonite black car group in which I grew up closed its doors. Though I am no longer an active participant in the Amish and Mennonite communities, I attended the final closing service of that Amish Mennonite church. To me it was a rather sad occasion, I still love my social culture, although I am unable to deal with the stifling rigid religion and its regulations but still enjoy providing painting service for my people locally and in their many other communities across the United States. Most of our cousins and distant kin are still in the Amish or Mennonite or Amish Mennonite communities. Our basic ancestry were Nissley. Schrock and Lee, Byler, but further back were Yoder, Mullet, Bender, Brenneman, Miller, Kauffman, Hochstetler, and much more, though the Lee's may have come from Ireland. About a hundred years ago, before they were rescued, some of our Nissley ancestry nearly died from starvation after a small group had randomly settled together in New Mexico, what a wild goose chase that was. One of Dad's cousins I found in Kansas, she showed me some pictures of the ancestral shanty home etc. in New Mexico. It was quite a task to locate that ancient community that failed, partly because the courthouse records were slim. I was unable to trace down the spot where the shanty once stood, not even the farm, but did find one of the other Amish comrade's farm, and a concrete slab where the small Amish school house had been. The Nissley's relocated to Oklahoma and later some returned to Kansas , that was where dad was born. We had about 200 first cousins, our parents both came from extra large Amish families who harshly shunned them and did not allow us to visit much when we were young. This is why we never met all of our cousins growing up, we never knew the uncles and aunts very well, nor the "weeping grandparents", is how I always remember them in my mind, only seeing them 4 or 5 times when I was very young. I guess its a good thing I was never horse and buggy Amish. I wouldn't know how to live like that to be honest about it. I can adapt to a lot of situations when required, but would have a very difficult time adjusting to such stringent Amish lifestyle, it would be especially hard to learn and abide by the strict ridged ultra religion and mandatory regulations. My dad had asked me once how I would feel if he and mom had never left the Amish and had raised us the old fashioned slow paced way. I said that is a hypothetical question and I would probably think it's honky dory but of course being on this side of the fence I'm glad it didn't happen. Sometime after our dad passed on, my sister said she had met some Amish relatives, and told me they turned out to be really nice people. That was all one needs to hear, I got a notion to go out of my way to meet some kin and discovered it was true. From that, it became habitual to seek them out! So whenever I track down Amish relatives, in most cases it is a pleasure to visit with them and get to know them. I am grateful that most of them happily welcome me in their homes, some even insist that I stay a day or two. Most Amish have no phones and therefore no social media, so if you know Amish families needing some rooms painted, if you can get them connected with me somehow, they will be very grateful to you. You may show them my painting photos in my photo albums on Instagram or Facebook profiles and also on my Facebook business page or my wix website. As I mentioned earlier, painting was a passion I had thoroughly enjoyed since childhood, so it was only natural to go into the business of painting once I sorted things out in my mind. It was a pleasure to meet strangers and turn them into friends, it made me feel really good when people appeared so happy to have me transform the inside of their houses and both the people and their pets getting used to my presence seemed sad at my departure. Some have said I had become like family. Then I had begun focusing more and more on serving clients in the deep Southern states from FL to LA , and having discovered Oklahoma and Texas, painted a few times there since 2015. In the 3rd grade geography class I had learned a lot about TX and resolved to live in that great ranch state one day! In one of those travel ventures I had continued painting in Oklahoma and Texas for about three months. In spite of the relentless wind, I fell in love with the solitude that can be found there and eventually moved to Texas for several years, somehow I couldn't help it
Even so, I was still focused on traveling state to state to paint as far north as Michigan, Wisconsin and west to Idaho, and also eastward to Indiana, OH, PA, VA and NC, and to the southern states into GA & FL and south-westward into AL, MS, LA
But I really missed living in the east, so it seemed pointless to stay in Texas. I have this saying about my home stomping grounds, "anywhere but here, but will I always return", even if but for a moment! More recently though, even if it was snowing, the people of the north seem to have managed to captivate me for painting their walls, ceilings, doors, window sashes, wood trim, railings, floors etc. But eventually I may be painting more in Sunny Florida more. I might even live there awhile, you never know what notion I will get next. Thank you for your interest in my services! Steve Nissley
PO Box 1062
Fishersville VA 22939
469-598-4585
Where there is a will there is a way! Favorite quote from my dad, RIP
