Southern Curated: Breaking Down A Furniture Flip

When it comes to painting and selling furniture the formula is very simple:

Buy low and sell higher

Period.  

And you take a chance every time you decide to purchase your next project to sell.  This is exactly the reason to set a ‘Max Buy In’ at twenty bucks when I started flipping.  And in my first year in this rodeo I didn’t hit $20 very ofter.  Mostly I stayed in the free to $10 range.  I kid you not.  It takes a lot of creativity but I’m here to tell you it can certainly be done.  In this post I’m going to use several recent finds as examples of a good ( in my humble opinion) place to start.  

Start with a smaller piece of furniture:

Side table, pair of chairs or a bench.

Today we are painting a bench.

Buy in: $8

To refresh your memory here’s what it looked like when I  brought it home from the Goodwill in South Asheville

Solid, sturdy, good classic lines.  

Original fabric?  Not my thing and frankly too taste specific.  The padding was new enough and good.  Most importantly , this piece of solid wood furniture DID NOT STINK.  

Color 

My general rule of thumb is this: 

Dark wood light paint color.

Light wood dark paint color.

Why? 

 Because rarely do I not distress something.  I love it .  I stick to a pretty small color palet.  

whites, black, grays &  blues

Here in my part of the country white sells the absolute best.

This bench was painted in the very last bit of a quart of Old White at $38 Per quart.  You can make your own by combining two Americana Decor chalk paints (4 parts Everlasting  and 1 part  Primitive) for much less.  About $4 each if you use a coupon. 

It is excellent paint.  

Wax

I only use Annie Sloan clear and dark waxes.  $25 each for the large and it goes along way.  Annie Sloan recently came out with a small (3-4 ounce I believe) wax for like $16.  There’s another place to start.

I painted, distressed and waxed the frame of the bench, re covered the seat in very inexpensive cotton duck and sewed a simple slipcover in blue ticking from Joann’s for around $3.50 a yard with a good email coupon.

When I finish a piece I immediately style and photograph the piece and not just for a blog post.  I advertise the piece for sale on Southern Curated’s Facebook page, Sweeten Creek Antiques Facebook page as well as Craigslist.  But here’s the real tip :

I also sell almost everything I’ve used in the pictures to style the piece.

Here is a list 

Silver tray $1

Blue napkins (set of 6) $2

Green metal stool $3

Ticking lumbar pillow insert $2

And this one’s gonna kill y’all

Antique twin size quilt 

$3

I usually won’t even think about buying a piece of furniture unless I know I can triple my investment.  On the Smalls that number goes WAY up.   It has been my experience that I pay my shop rent on Smalls.  

They go fast!

So think about this.

  Take a $20 bill to a BIG church or neighborhood yard sale and I bet you can walk away with 3 good pieces of furniture to paint.  

Oh, yea.  Stop at Michaels on your way home and pick out your paint.  

Paige

Blogs I love!

http://www.savvysouthernstyle.net/?m=1

http://www.frenchcountrycottage.net/?m=1

http://seekinglavenderlane.com

http://diy-vintage-chic.blogspot.com/?m=1