“I bring in up to $3,000 a month selling old furniture!”
“A few years ago, I wanted to buy a new dining room set, but my husband didn’t think we should when we had one that was perfectly good. So I started Googling ‘How to upcycle furniture.’ I’m not very crafty, but I found some videos on YouTube and tried it. My husband and I sanded and stained our old table and I fell in love with it. I still hated my chairs, so I ended up finding some cute ones at a thrift store. While I was there, I saw a lot of pieces of furniture available for $25 to $45— far less than you’d pay in a store, so I decided to see if I could make money upcycling other pieces.
“I work full-time as a social worker, so I do this on weekends and at night. My husband and I scour flea markets and Craigslist for inexpensive but well-made furniture. I learned quickly that I had to haggle people down to get my pieces as cheaply as possible. Once you go into a thrift store a few times, enough people get to know you and they’ll give you better prices. The supplies are minimal: sandpaper, paint or stain, a brush or spray gun. We do our work in the garage and the yard. Most of my pieces are painted black or white since that’s what people often request, but I like to do colors and distressing too.
“I sell the pieces on Offer Up, a selling site, and on Instagram, where I post and hashtag my work #furnitureFridays. I can do as many as eight pieces a month and as little as four. In my best months, I make more than $3,000.”