How to Make Money on the Side From Home By Flipping Furniture
Are you looking for a creative way to make money on the side from home? Have you ever considered flipping furniture? With some dedication, hard work, and an eye for design, you could turn flipping furniture into a profitable side hustle or even a full-time career.
In this post, you will learn insider tips and best practices to get started flipping furniture and making extra cash from home. Drawing from my own experience, I will take you through the process of flipping furniture from start to finish: from identifying a piece to sell and creating a design plan to sourcing materials and making a sale. In my opinion, it’s one of the best side hustles in addition to a day job!
With this guide, you can gain the confidence, knowledge, and resources to start your own successful furniture-flipping business.
I am a big fan of part-time side hustle ideas, despite working a full-time job. Take this info, implement it, make your schedule, and customize it to make it your own to create your lucrative side hustle-flipping furniture! Make your success story happen to make extra money.
If this is your first time here, hi… I’m Meredith! I have been blogging for over 7 years. I am the creator of Arts & Classy. This site began with the hope that I could document my experience decorating my home. As a renter with little to no budget, I had to flex my creative muscles and learn how to decorate my home with things and furniture I already had or could get for free.
Years later, I have built a brand and helped many people do the same with their homes.
Blogging + Social Media management + marketing have become passions of mine. That and learning more about SEO helped me make a complete career change from working in film and TV to doing what I love in my home. Today I am sharing how to make money on the side from home in the way of furniture flipping.
This post contains some affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.
I recommend starting a website with your furniture flipping side hustle. You may be asking yourself why? I always recommend it so people can see the furniture you have already worked on. Think of it as your portfolio and another avenue to make money.
All you need is an internet connection and a computer for this step.
Having a website will give you a professional look and will be a great portfolio and provide your contact info. I use WordPress.org and BigScoots as my web host to keep my site up and running. You can also purchase your domain name when setting up your site with BigScoots.
This will also include naming your furniture-flipping business. For me, Arts and Classy came to me one day. I didn’t put any pressure on figuring out the name. It just flowed and it was easy to remember which is a tip that I think is super important. Don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself with the name of your business. You can always change and refine it later.
Another important part of having a site is connecting with brands to land free products and potentially sponsored content.
For example, I work with the brand Deco Art a lot. They send me their “Chalky Finish” paints whenever I request them from them because I am a part of their blogger outreach program. I just tell them what I will be working on and send them links to the content once it’s gone live on my site.
I have also built brand relationships like this with Cutting Edge Stencils. They are so amazing to send me any stencil I request when I have a project I am inspired by.
Action steps for you here are to make a list or a spreadsheet of companies you will want to work with and find out how to get in contact with them.
The reason it is important to connect with brands to get free products is that it will lessen your expense per project and increase your potential for profit from the flip. It can also lead to affiliate marketing, paid traffic from search engines, and paid sponsored content with brands you love and/or ones you want to work with. AKA more passive income!
Create some social media profiles for your furniture-flipping business. I recommend using Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube videos, and Facebook. Use your business name as the handle across all platforms and the same photo on all platforms so that people can find you easily.
Creating a YouTube channel would be great too if you have the time and energy to be editing longer videos regularly.
When you create your profiles make sure to post content regularly. This could be a piece you just got, once you are working on, or a reveal of a piece you completed. Going LIVE and sharing “stories” daily is a great way to stay connected and find new members of your audience.
It’s a good idea to start following people flipping furniture like you and the people who follow them to grow your audience.
Another great idea is creating a private Facebook community around the topic of furniture makeovers so you can attract like-minded people. Make sure to dedicate enough time to this group to create engagement so it doesn’t become a dead group.
My favorite price is FREE and that was all I had to work with when I first started doing furniture makeovers. I began with furniture in my home that were hand-me-downs or pieces that didn’t reflect my style anymore.
Other online marketplaces I have had success finding furniture projects to flip are…
- On the side of the road. Believe it or not, some of my best finds have been curbside.
- Contacting friends/family to see if they are looking to get rid of any furniture. Sometimes I will post on my personal Facebook. You wouldn’t believe how many people gave me the stuff to work on.
- Yard/Garage/Estate Sales
- Goodwill
- Salvation Army
- Facebook Marketplace
- Nextdoor app
- Trove app
*Pro Tip* – Start with smaller furniture items unless you have extra space to store in your home.
I recommend picking up smaller items to flip. Here are some examples of what I mean…
- Wood accent chairs
- Side tables
- Nightstands
- Cabinets
- Ottomans
- Coffee tables
- Desks
- Console tables
In my experience, buyers are looking for smaller pieces that can fit in a vehicle and are easy to swap out.
I have flipped some dressers in the past, but unless you have a truck or means of shipping the larger piece (or the buyer does)… it’s not worth your time and effort. This can be a different situation if you only plan on selling locally. The only app/site where I sell pieces that can ship is Chairish.
Build your supply closet of paint and furniture rehabbing supplies because you will need them for whatever projects you find. It’s good to have things on hand when creativity strikes.
Here is a basic list of supplies that I recommend.
Here are some examples of small furniture that I worked on recently where I show my experience, products, and process.
Since many people now know what I do for a living, I get opportunities to take home free furniture a lot. I prefer to work on FREE finds since I will make more of a profit when I sell them.
The pricing formula is whatever you are comfortable with based on a couple of things…
- Time (how much time does it take for you to complete a piece)
- Supplies (if you invest any money in supplies make sure to include that pricing in the finished product price)
- Research what similar items are selling/listed for and price competitively.
Here are a few recent furniture flips that I filmed to share the process that taught me more about how to make money on the side from home. Check them out to see more behind the scenes.
Photography is everything! This is a great time to put on your photographer hat! Look for inspiration from other furniture flippers to see how they are staging their inventory. Make sure to take BEFORE and AFTER photos of each project you work on.
*Pro Tip* When you take your after photos, try to take them in good lighting. Natural light is best, but a ring light will also work well to help you capture the beauty of each furniture piece.
- Use items around your house to make the piece you’re selling look as it could be in the buyer’s home. People need visuals so they can picture how they would use it in their homes.
- Use a nice camera to take photos of your finished furniture or use a phone with a nice camera.
- Take photos from the front, side, back, top, & an angle (of your choice.)
- Get a photo editing app for your phone like Canva or VSCO
Here are some examples of staged pieces I have photographed. (If you want to see each tutorial click on each image below.)
Once you get into a rhythm of finding, flipping, and selling furniture you will love it. It’s how to make money on the side from home in the fastest way I know. I know this was a lot of information plugged into this post.
Learn more about how to make money on the side from home by taking action and downloading the following apps to sell on:
- Facebook (for marketplace) I share a lot about flipping furniture and selling with Marketplace.
- NextDoor
- Let Go
- Chairish
- Trove
- Varage Sale
- Wish Local
- Craigslist
- Poshmark for a limited time, use my code ARTSANDCLASSY to save $10!
- Etsy
Here is a video tutorial of how I list and sell furniture I flip on Facebook Marketplace.
Not only can you use these apps and websites to sell your furniture flips, but you can also use them to find the furniture you work on.
In your listing descriptions always include…
- A brief story and description of the piece. Be honest about the quality of each.
- Dimensions width x length x height
- Whether it is a pick-up sale or if you deliver (how big of a mile radius + if you charge a fee).
- The price you are asking + OBO aka Or Best Offer.
- What types of payments do you accept?
- When using Facebook Marketplace encourage Facebook Payments (easy to set up and deposits in your account immediately without a fee)
- Zelle (Very popular with Wells Fargo bankers)
- Venmo
- Cash (green is always best)
- Paypal (only if you don’t mind being charged a fee)
Once you start posting to multiple platforms keep your notifications on so you can respond quickly when people contact you with questions.
You can also run ads if you have the budget to boost your posts to better your chances of selling. When you find a buyer, use your coordinating skills and arrange the pick-up or delivery.
Whether you are adding this side gig to help you pay your rent, have extra fun money, or eventually replace your full-time income you can start anywhere. I don’t want to overwhelm you and prevent you from getting started today with your new great side hustle gig. I made you a FREE 5-page Printable Furniture Flipping Side Hustle Business Guide/Checklist to help keep you on track.
Make sure you are following me on my social media accounts Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Hometalk, and TikTok. Make sure to subscribe to the blog for more ideas on how to decorate your home and develop a good side hustle!
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