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On the show today are Dani and Sherry from Second Chance Ohana. Sherry and Dani are a mom and daughter furniture flipping team from Phoenix, Arizona. They find or buy furniture, repurpose it, and sell their amazing transformations in their local market.
Dani is doing this business full-time and Sherry is retired and does it as a hobby. Together the two make up Second Chance Ohana where they give old pieces of furniture a second chance.
When Did You Get Into The Business?
About a year ago Dani and Sherry started an estate sale company where they would sell items from entire homes. They quickly learned that it was a lot of labor and the items filled their homes for months at a time as they slowly sold everything off. It was a good introduction to the reselling business, but they realized they could get a lot more money for furniture pieces if they refinished them.
The two have always been crafty and creative, so they started experimenting with old school pieces by giving them a modern twist.
There’s a lot that goes into furniture flipping: sourcing, sanding, staining, painting and hardware upgrades.
Where Do You Source Your Pieces?
Dani and Sherry find their pieces all over. They love thrift store hunting, and also source on Facebook Marketplace. Plus, they’ve built a network so their friends and family will refer people to them when they’re looking to get rid of something. Sherry says at least half of their items were free. They’ll also go around before pickup on garbage day to see if they can find any pieces of furniture headed for the dump. By doing this, they are getting free items, but they are also keeping items out of the landfill.
Melissa and I do this all the time too. The barrier to entry for flipping is low because you can get items for free simply by taking the time to look. One person’s trash can be another person’s treasure.
What Is The Criteria For When You Refinish A Piece Of Furniture And When You Sell As Is?
If an item has already been professionally restored or is in amazing condition and they can sell it as is, they will.
Dani says if something’s in great condition, and doesn’t need to be touched, she has no desire to throw paint on a gorgeous piece of furniture that doesn’t need it. Instead they focus on using paint on items that need major repairs.
Dani says antiques will sell no matter what because people love antiques, but it’s the outdated pieces from the seventies or eighties that they like to give new life to.
Tell Us About Some Of Your Restorations.
Dani and Sherry work really hard to make their pieces totally unique and custom. Recently they took an old TV and turned it into a liquor cabinet. They also turned a sewing cabinet into a bar. Bars are one of their go-tos when it comes to transformations because people who typically purchase bars are interested in something custom. They’re one of a kind pieces that appeal to people who love hosting or having parties.
Where Do You Sell Your Finished Items?
Dani and Sherry sell all of their items locally, via Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp. Their items sell really fast locally, so they haven’t yet entered the world of online shipping on eBay. Bars usually sell within a week and other items like hutches that have been split into two, usually sell within days. They try to do about one piece a week.
What Do You Look For With Furniture?
Sherry says they love solid wood and nice brands, but mostly they’re looking for anything that’s in their price range or free. When they randomly come across brand names at a good price, they snatch them up every single time. The high end of what they will spend is usually $60 unless they find something really unique.
Just recently they found a vintage 1904 Victrola phonograph with the crank and the shape is really unique. They spent $70 on that purchase because it’s one of a kind and they know they can charge more for it once it’s turned into a cool bar.
If Something Is Cracked, How Do You Repair It?
If it’s wood, they use wood glue and clamp them together until it’s nice and dry and then sand off any excess glue. Then they stain it if it isn’t too bad. But if something has a major crack, it needs to be repaired with Bondo wood filler.
What Do You Charge For These Pieces?
Sherry and Dani have a system where they ask each other what their dream price would be for a piece, and that’s what they list it at for a few weeks. Sometimes it sells without negotiation at that price. Within a couple of weeks if it hasn’t sold, they’ll go down. But they always talk about their dream price and their minimum taking price before listing an item.
Sometimes they have to charge extra if there are a lot of materials or time put into a piece. On average materials cost between $20 to $50. Most of their items sell for between $300 to $500.
There are online calculators that can help determine what furniture should be sold for, and then it will also depend on how things sell in your area.
Where Do You Store All Of It?
Dani says they have very gracious families because they do all of their work out of the garage, and also store furniture in there. Sherry has an entire room in her house of next pieces waiting to be transformed.
When sourcing they prioritize grabbing the pieces they know are worth it rather than grabbing every little good piece because otherwise there wouldn’t be room for it all.
It’s possible to do furniture flipping without a storage unit if you can make some room in your own home or garage. You can make it work wherever you’re at.
What Advice Would You Give To Someone Looking To Get Into Furniture Flipping?
Number one is to get the family on board because it can be invasive with taking up space in your garage and home.
Buy items as low as you can because if you buy a piece for too much and put too much into it, there’s no point in doing it if you’re not going to make any money.
What Are Some Of The Tools And Products You Use?
- Bosch Orbital Sander plus grits in sizes from 80 to 320
- Festool Dust Extractor to suck the dust out of the work space
- Melange One paint
- Topcoat (polyurethane or polycrylic) from Home Depot or Lowes
- Knobs and hardware from Amazon or Etsy
Show Notes
Second Chance Ohana YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvPLTrPAmNjtG5295qLpy8A?app=desktop
Second Chance Ohana Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secondchanceohana/
Melange furniture paint: https://www.melangepaints.com/shop
Check out our FREE Workshop: https://courses.fleamarketflipper.com/flipper-university-workshop-webinar
You can find us at: https://fleamarketflipper.com/
FURTHER RESOURCES
Download These 47 Household Items To Resell TODAY!
FREE Workshop How To Turn Your Passion of Flipping Items Into A Profitable Reselling Business
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Thank you for sharing your expert. I am really stoked to get started.
Awesome Karen!