How to Restore Furniture For Profit: A Comprehensive Guide

Learning how to restore furniture for profit can be a good side hustle. 

But how do you do it profitably?

In this comprehensive guide on how to make money restoring furniture, you’re going to learn how to get started restoring furniture for profit, tools you need, where to source nice quality furniture, and many more.

The process is simple and anyone can do it regardless of their age: you just need a bit of working space and ideas on how to restore furniture for profit.

Note that, you’re going to come across terms such as furniture flipping, restoring furniture, refurbishing furniture, and many others.

So, to familiarize ourselves with these terms, here is exactly what they mean.

What is furniture restoration/flipping?

Restoring, refurbishing, or flipping furniture is just as it sounds. You buy old furniture (whether a desk, table, etc.), repair it to make it look great again, then sell it at a profit.

You must have heard of website flipping. These side hustles follow almost the same principle of buying, fixing, and selling things at a profit.  

However, in website flipping, you’re buying digital products whereas in furniture flipping or restoring, you’re dealing with physical items.

How much money can you make restoring furniture?

Typically, how much money you can make restoring furniture depends entirely on your skills, expertise, where you source old furniture, and where/how you sell it.

In most cases, you can expect to earn a profit from $0 to $10,000.

Most seasoned resellers specialize in armchairs and sofas while others focus on every type of furniture.  You just need to learn how to restore furniture the right way- which is exactly what you’re going to learn in this article.

How furniture restoring works

To restore furniture, you don’t need any college degree. As mentioned above, the process is simple and anyone can do it.

You just need to look for undervalued but good quality furniture, fix or repair it, then sell it at a higher price.

You can either buy old furniture or use the ones you already have in your home, as long as they can still be repaired and sold.

The good thing about restoring furniture is that people are looking to buy quality furniture at affordable prices, so you already have a ready market.

How profitable is furniture restoration?

Restoring furniture can be a profitable side hustle.

To make good money restoring furniture, you need to know how to identify undervalued yet good-quality furniture that you can buy at a cheap price, spruce it up to make it look new, then sell it at a higher price.

To make high profit margins, research on furniture that will resell quickly and look for these. Also, look for pieces that don’t require a lot of fixing to reduce the amount of time you’d spend working on them.

How scalable is furniture restoration?

Generally, furniture flipping is not a scalable side hustle for various reasons:

1. Generating high revenue will depend on your ability to identify good quality furniture that is sold at a low price, repair it efficiently, and market it properly to customers.
2. Also, you can’t automate most of the tasks. This means that you will have to perform every task yourself, leaving you with little or no time to take on additional work.

Besides, you can’t justify hiring other people to help you with some work if you don’t have many orders.

How good is furniture restoration as a side hustle

As we mentioned earlier, it is difficult to grow furniture flipping as a business. However, when you become proficient in this venture, the profits are likely to increase. This means that there is a good opportunity to make money restoring furniture.

This being your own business, you won’t be pushed by anyone to meet deadlines (unless you get orders that need to be worked on within a given period). 

Another bonus is that furniture doesn’t expire.

Getting started with furniture flipping is also not difficult. You can start restoring your own furniture with your own tools, which means you don’t need huge start-up capital.

Also, once you get regular clients, you can be sure you’ll have projects to work on consistently.

Undeniably, furniture restoration is a good side hustle.

Tools and materials needed to start restoring furniture for profit

As mentioned earlier, to generate good revenue restoring furniture, you must have the right tools and materials for the job. You can learn how to refurbish old furniture on YouTube (there are many videos there).

Here are a few essential tools for restoring wooden furniture.

1.  Sandpaper

The wooden furniture you’re looking to refurbish will probably have scratches and dings. Sandpaper or a sander will help to get rid of all these and make the surface smooth, allowing your primer and paint to adhere properly.

You may also buy some paint stripper if you’re dealing with wooden furniture with multiple layers of paint.

For large pieces of furniture, we recommend using an electric sander.

2.   Wood putty and a putty knife

You will also need to cover the dings, dents, and cracks. So, you must have some wood putty or filler at hand. Make sure you buy wood putty depending on the amount of work. A putty knife will help to smear the putty onto the furniture.

3.  Wood glue

Some old wooden furniture may have loose joints that need to be strengthened. You’ll need some wood glue for these.

4.  Primer

You’ll need to apply primer before painting the surface of your furniture tomake the paint adhere to the surface, leaving it looking shiny. You will also need a paintbrush for this work.

Make sure you purchase primer depending on your paint color.

5.   Varnish

Varnishing your furniture helps to protect the paint from the elements and ensures your furniture looks glossy and shiny.

6.  Spring clamps

Glued wood pieces need to be held together for a while to allow the glue to dry properly. You can buy spring clamps depending on the space you have in your workshop.

7.    Rags

You’re going to deal with a lot of dirt when sanding, painting, and filling wooden furniture, so you’ll want to get as many rags as possible.

You can buy boxes of rags or use old garments in your house. These are just a few of the essential tools and supplies you need to get started with furniture restoration.

The cost of furniture restoration

As stated earlier, you don’t need too much money to start restoring furniture for profit. You can even start with as low as $100.

Generally, the costs associated with furniture restoration include:

• Purchasing the furniture. You can also start with old furniture that you have in your home.
• Tools and supplies. Start by purchasing the basic tools and materials.
• Packaging and shipping- if you’re going to sell to customers far from your local area

The good thing about furniture restoration is that once you get enough tools and supplies, the only expense you will incur is buying the furniture, and perhaps packaging and shipping. Check out this article to learn how shipping in an online marketplace works.

How to get started restoring furniture for money

Restoring furniture is a process you ought to start small. Ideally, we recommend starting with a few pieces of furniture.

Once you sell your first few pieces successfully, repeat the process until you gain expertise in the niche. This will help you learn what sells best, where and how easy it is to find them, etc. 

Here’s an article we wrote explaining how to sell online with no money. 

What types of furniture should you consider?

When it comes to furniture restoration, the type of furniture will depend on what you can get at the time of starting. This depends entirely on where you’re going to source your furniture and their availability.

Nevertheless, there are general rules every new furniture flipper needs to follow.

• When you’re just getting started flipping furniture for money, a general rule of thumb is to look for simple and cheap pieces of furniture.
• Also, if you can get real wood and metal furniture, the better.
• Another thing is to look for pieces of furniture that are easy to restore to minimize the times it takes to restore them.

Good examples of furniture to consider for restoration are end tables, dressers, buffets, and storage chests such as trunks, and many others.

Types of furniture to avoid

To get started with your furniture restoration business successfully, you need to avoid these types of furniture:

•  Items with too many broken parts that aren’t easy to refurbish. For instance, you may struggle to repair an amazing dresser with three broken drawers. 
• Furniture with jammed drawers. People want furniture with drawers that can easily slide so unless you can fix these, just avoid them.
• Pieces of furniture with too many paint layers. If you can strip the paint and repaint the pieces of furniture properly, don’t hesitate to buy them. However, stripping and painting these types of furniture can be time-consuming.
• Poorly made furniture. Part of the reason why people buy flipped furniture is that even though it’s old, the quality is top-notch. Furthermore, customers also want to buy durable items.

In summary, find products that don’t require too much fixing so that you can speed up the process.

Ready to learn how to restore furniture for profit step-by-step?

Keep reading below.

Restoring furniture for profit: steps to maximizing success

Step #1: Learn how to identify quality pieces of furniture

Not all used pieces of furniture you will find in stores can be restored for profit. So, you want to make sure you can identify the best quality furniture that can be easily restored.

Choose furniture pieces that are made of real wood and are in solid shape. This way, you will not spend a lot of time repairing them. Also, you have to make sure the furniture doesn’t break a few days or weeks after selling them. People will start to lose their trust in you.

Step #2: Get handy

Watch YouTube tutorials and get inspiration from sites like Pinterest to learn how to best restore the used furniture you want to flip. 

To earn the highest possible profits, you’ll need to figure out how best to refurbish the furniture you want to flip. 

People can notice poorly finished furniture, so you want to learn how to do your work attractively.

Find out which colors to use for refinishing.

In short, learn how to do your work in a way that will attract potential customers and bring in more sales. 

Step #4: Use quality tools and supplies

As you’re getting started, you want to make a good first impression. Even if you’re starting with one or two pieces of furniture, you want to make sure customers recognize your products as soon as possible.

For that reason, you need to use quality tools and supplies.

While, the idea to start with lower quality materials may be tempting but if you go that route, you will take longer to convince customers as your finished products won’t be attractive.

Try as much as you can to avoid cheap and lower quality materials, if you want to create a good name for your products.

We mentioned a few tools and materials above, but you can find out more.

Step #5: Know what’s trending

You’re going to struggle to sell your products if you make items that aren’t trending anymore.

New trends are coming up every day. You can get inspiration on Pinterest or check out what popular furniture flippers are doing via Facebook groups, YouTube, or visit their websites.

Step #6: Decide if you’ll need a website

If you want to restore furniture as a full-time business, we highly recommend building a website.

A website is a powerful marketing tool where you can showcase your finished products to many people.

In fact, having a website for your furniture restoration venture will make you look professional, which will earn your customers’ trust.

The good thing is that building a website doesn’t cost you a lot of money. You could even start a blog where you can educate people about your products then show them where to buy your furniture (your website).

If you are not shy you can make videos and embed them onto your blog posts. This will help your company grow as you will get traffic via your blog posts and youtube videos.

Wondering whether selling online is worth it? This article might answer your questions.

Step #7: Know where to find furniture to restore

You can get the furniture to flip in plenty of places, however, you need to know where to find good quality furniture at low prices. 

Take a look at this article in which we give details of where you can buy cheap stuff to resell .

Here are a few areas to find quality furniture for free or at affordable prices:

• Buy from friends and family

We stated earlier that when it comes to restoring furniture for profit, you need to start small. The best place to start looking for furniture to restore is around your home, from friends, or family members.

There is a good chance that your friends or family members will give you re-usable furniture for free.

You can also post on local Facebook groups to let people know that you’re looking for old furniture.

• Thrift stores

Undeniably, most thrift store owners are resellers – which means they are also looking to make profits. However, thrift stores are the best places to find furniture to restore for money.

Try to visit these places on Monday mornings to take advantage of the donations made to them during weekends.

• Garage sales

You can also find reusable pieces of furniture at your local garage sales. Consider visiting these places early in the morning to get decent quality furniture.

June, July, and August are the best months to get great pieces of furniture on most garage sales.

•  Craigslist

Craigslist is also a great place to search for used furniture that you can flip for profit.

These days, because many people are looking to declutter their homes, the easiest way to get rid of old stuff fast is to advertise them on Craigslist or the Facebook Marketplace.

Just make sure you’re buying good quality pieces of furniture.

• Sheepbuy

Browse through Sheepbuy’s listings and you are likely to find some second-hand furniture for sale. Our marketplace attracts sellers because we don’t charge a commission on sales. This is also a good platform for you to buy and flip the restored furniture. Find out more here.

•  Estate sales 

You can get a lot of furniture from estate sales. In fact, these are the most frequented places by people looking to learn how to restore furniture for profit because most of the products sold there are cheap but in good quality.

• Flea markets

You can easily haggle and get great deals at flea markets, since most sellers there are looking to clear their inventory quickly.

Most people who sell items at flea markets do it as their main job, so you are most likely to get decent pieces of furniture.

Finding great pieces of furniture that are sold at affordable prices can help to maximize the chances of success in your furniture restoration venture.

Step #8: Decide whether you will deliver products to customers

Delivering products to customers is good because it can help you increase your customer base. However, you need to make sure that customers will get their orders in good condition.

The last thing you want is to handle customer complaints after your products break down in the process of delivery.

Also, with delivery, the customer will have to cater for the charges, so you want to make sure you aren’t overcharging them.

Step #9: Offer good customer support

To be successful in any business, you must be able to help customers at their time of need.

Therefore, one of the most powerful marketing tools you want to take advantage of is word of mouth.

Make sure you give your customers an amazing experience and they will surely refer their friends and relatives to you.

Step #11: Issue business cards to customers

This is also another powerful marketing tool alongside word-of-mouth marketing. Print as many business cards as you can then include your phone number, or website, as well as the service you offer, then give them to your customers.

To help you succeed in your business, check out this article on how to successfully sell used stuff online.

Best places to restore and flip furniture

Check out the following online marketplaces that are designed specifically for connecting buyers and sellers.

• eBay
• Sheepbuy
• Craigslist 
• Shopify 
• Letgo
• Bonanza
• OfferUp
• VarageSale
• Etsy 
• Facebook Marketplace
• Chairish
• AptDeco 

How to maximize profits restoring furniture

As stated earlier, learning how to correctly restore furniture for profit can help you to generate good money. However, there are a few tips to maximize your earnings.

1. Price your items realistically

When flipping anything, whether it’s a house, a website, or furniture, you want to price reasonably.

Even though you will want to add value to the time and work you dedicated to restoring your furniture, you need to avoid huge price tags that scare off customers.

Be sure to consider every possible factor before pricing your restored furniture. This includes: cost of restoration, shipping cost, time taken to restore, etc. 

2. Know where to buy good supplies at affordable prices

Even though you need to use good quality tools and materials, you don’t want to spend all the money you have on them.

Be sure to research and find places you can get great tools and supplies at affordable prices. You can try searching in classifieds, estate sales and even pawn shops.

Consider hiring tools as opposed to buying, especially if you’ll be working on low volumes. This might save you a few bucks.

3. Take great pictures of the restored furniture

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and this is especially true if you want to sell your stuff online.

Take good quality photos of the furniture, showing all the details using a good camera.

4. Write detailed descriptions

The better you describe your stuff the more likely they will sell. When describing your furniture, include important details such as weight, materials used, dimensions, colors, etc.

Also, mention important details about past owners, if it’s relevant to the sale.

The more thorough description of your item the greater chance it will be crawled by google and appear in search results.

5. Offer delivery/shipping services

This is one of the best ways to open up your furniture restoration business to a wider audience.

In this era of technology, people are looking to purchase items conveniently from the comfort of their homes. No one wants to move around looking for dining tables. If you can deliver these items to their doorstep, you will set yourself apart from other sellers.

Quick tip

Learning how to restore furniture for profit takes patience. You will often get pieces of furniture that are dirty, broken, or worn-down that need a lot of work.

So, your work will mostly be prepping, cleaning, sanding, painting, sealing, etc.

Clearly, all this takes time, and because you want your finished product to be attractive, don’t rush the process.

Finally,

Learning how to restore furniture is an amazing way to make money on the side to supplement your income. In fact, some people are doing it as their full-time business.

However, you need to be creative in the way you market your items. You also need to know where to source good quality tools, supplies, and furniture at affordable prices.

Here are a few takeaways from this comprehensive guide:

• You can make money from restoring furniture by just dedicating a few hours a week.
• To restore furniture for profit, look for decent quality and reusable furniture that people no longer use, refurbish it, and then sell it at a profit.
• To get the most out of this venture, you need to learn how to identify bargains, restore it to look great, and then market it efficiently.
• It’s not easy to scale this type of venture, but if you get steady work, you can grow fast.
• To grow your business, you need to cultivate a good relationship with your customers and those you source materials and supplies from.
• Getting started with furniture restoration is easy.
• You can sell your restored furniture in online marketplaces or within your neighborhood. Be sure to choose the channel that suits you.

If you’re looking to sell anything, consider Sheepbuy which might be the ideal marketplace for you. 

Our packages are affordable. In fact, the basic tier is free and you can have up to three free active listings at any given time. Moreover, no commission is charged on your sales and no hidden fees whatsoever.