If you’re stuck in a cubicle, you’ve likely thought about creating your own home-based business. Imagine the luxury of spending your day doing whatever you want. Your schedule is yours, with no pointy-haired bosses giving you orders.

But the idea of a home-based business will be far too frightening for most people to consider. Ann Rae was not amongst the fearful, though.

Part of the dilemma you might face is the question of what to do. For Ann, as it should be with you, it’s a matter of understanding both what you love doing and your skill set.

As a trained artist, Ann had a natural love for art and the skills to create beautiful paintings. But Ann knew she didn’t want to be a starving artist. The idea of selling art to the home-based business seemed like a great idea.

Then, like Ann, you’ll want to see your new home-based business as a business first, and something you love second.

Ann had worked at a variety of jobs in software, investment and fundraising until an encounter with a breast cancer patient made her realize that life is too short to spend it doing things she didn’t like.

“I realized, ‘I hate my life, I’m completely miserable, I want to paint,’ ” said Rea.

Ann drafted a 30-page business plan outlining how to make a living from her art. This is exactly what you should do as your second step (after getting clear on the nature of your business). Since Ann Rea loved painting landscapes. And she realized that she lived within driving distance of some very marketable landscapes — California vineyards — she felt he’d found the perfect niche market for a home-based business.

So she came up with a strategy of contracting with wineries to do oil paintings of their vineyards, sell them prints and postcards of her work, and then sell the originals to wine lovers through shows and receptions at tasting rooms.

“My assumption was that the wine lover is a collecting personality, and likely to collect art,” Ann Rea said. “And I don’t really care if I’m painting vineyards or some other scene. I’m painting the ambient light and color.”

Ann Rea started painting full time two years ago. She sought free consulting from the San Francisco Small Business Development Center to learn bookkeeping and sales negotiation, and to help set long-term financial goals.

She now has seven winery clients, including Gloria Ferrer Champagne Caves and E. & J. Gallo Winery. She is negotiating to publish a book of her vineyard paintings, and she expects to reach 150 percent of her sales goal of $100,000 for the year.

Success with a home-based business often depends on your creativity and perseverance with your marketing and business knowledge. It’s not just about creating a better widget, or in Ann Rea’s case, fine art.

Said Iain Douglass, VP of Marketing for Gallo Wines: “Wine is a live product, and her style of plein-air painting captures it live. Ann Rea’s business approach was the best I’ve seen from the art world. Her flexibility in offering her paintings in so many different forms allows us to share it with our customers in many different ways, from thank-yous for key customers to postcards in our tasting rooms.”

Even with the best plan, your first year will often be stressful. It’s very scary, but in the end if you stick with it, you’ll get to do what you want, when you want. This is one of the best parts of having a home-based business.

Why would you ever go back to a cubicle when you can be doing what you love and making good money in the process? A home-based business can be both profitable and rewarding, but you’ve still got to make it a business.

Rea’s first year as a full-time painter was marked by constant anxiety, but she has moved past that. “It was very scary,” she said. “But it’s the best. I finally get to do what I love. I had chosen to abandon art, chosen to believe it was unpractical and I couldn’t do it. Now I would rather stick a dull needle in my eye than go back to a cubicle.

Learn more about Ann Rea’s home-based business and her unique wine gifts.