Flippin Furniture Blog

Have you ever been a part of a Business Mastermind where you are with other like-minded business owners for the sake of networking, learning, and growing together? Everyone I have been to so far has been just a little different. I just got back from the most amazing one ever. There were roughly twenty of us small business owners in a large 25 bedroom house in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. My husband is a big part of what I do, so I wanted him to come with me, and he was able to this time. Thank goodness, and you will understand what I mean by this shortly. Masterminds have so many levels. You think it is all about the business, but it goes so much deeper than that. Things can get heavy. People “stop being polite and start getting real” (to quote MTV’s The Real World) after a few days or drinks. People have side conversations where they share some of their most personal feelings and things that have happened to them in their past. This is not forced or even encouraged. It just happens when you are with the right people. At this Mastermind, everyone got a “hot seat.” We each had about 30 minutes to give a brief background of what our business is and what we are currently struggling with, and everyone gives their advice on how to help you. In previous Mastermind’s, I would rarely have any questions ready. And didn’t know what to talk about. And I would take my turn toward the end.Have I also mentioned that I am shy by nature, and I have anxiety? Those used to seem to work against me, and still do most days, but I have gotten to the point at these events that I like to go earlier. Like first or second. Part of it is strategically and part of it to get it over with. I decided to march up there and plant my name first on the list. Pretty stinking proud of myself at that point! A few hours later, I realized that an important person who could have valuable feedback for my business wouldn’t be there on time. I had to move to the top of the schedule for the third day. Ok, not the end of the world. I can relax the next couple of days and take it all in. My anxiety had other ideas. So many thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I don’t belong here. I’m not good enough. These people are so far ahead of me. I am starting all over, brand new on this blogging adventure. Why did I get accepted into this Mastermind? I have nothing to offer these people. Apparently, these things were written all over my face. One of my friend’s husbands came over at one point and tried to give me a pep talk. I will love him forever for that. I woke up the morning of my hot seat, so unbelievably nervous. Shaking like a leaf. Nerves are racing. But time marches on, and like my grandma always used to say, it was time to “poop or get off the pot.” I had to pull up my “big girl panties” and do it. It was my turn. Once I got started, I was fine. I started with how I had just closed my brick and mortar and signed the papers, and my building was sold the day before we left to come to the Mastermind. That blogging was my brand new baby, and please don’t tell me my baby is ugly. Everyone laughed, and it was all good from there. One of the things everyone saw for me, among many other things, was to do with fashion. They all seemed to think that I had style and that brands should be paying me to wear their clothes on my Facebook lives, etc., and give links to where I bought them, etc. They were so kind and uplifting and even called me “trendy” at one point. What the what? So much building me up on my outward appearance was something that truly made me happy and made me giggle. Like a lot. Little did they know…but they would find out later that night… One of our colleagues treated those of us that were there our last night to an Escape Room experience. It was a lot of fun and a little chaotic at times, but very cool! I love haunted houses and the props, so this escape room scene that we were in was much like that. It was four prison cells. Toilets, beds, lockboxes, bars, the whole deal. We came back to the house after that and relaxed with some adult beverages. That was when I finally told them. All this talk about my fashion style during my hot seat that morning and all the while I was wearing my husband’s underwear! That was a first for me! I had run out and didn’t realize it until I had gotten out of the shower that morning. I could have gone commando, I suppose, but that did not appeal to me in the least! Had I realized I was out of underwear the night before, I would have done some laundry! And the shirt I had on that day, just happened to have a slit in the middle of the back, from the waist up. I kept trying to make sure it was closed all day. But of course, when I bent over, it was noticeable. I do have to say that his undies were pretty comfortable! Although the thick waistband probably gave me away. I know one friend told me later that she had noticed the waistband when I bent over but hadn’t realized what she was looking at! I probably could have gone without telling this story, but they told me I had to!!! It was too funny not to, I suppose. I mean, picture me being told about how they like my outfits all week and how I put them together, etc…and here I am wearing my hubby’s undies underneath! Thank goodness he was with me on this trip!!! I hope this at least made you smile!

We took off for my business trip on Saturday morning. We did not get in a huge hurry to leave. By the time we dropped off a tractor at the neighbors, stopped and said goodbye to my mother in law, and dropped something off at my daughter’s, it was probably at least 10am. We had kind of hoped to leave more like 8 am. We plan, God laughs. We decided that we weren’t going to stress over it and take things as they came. I think everything was going pretty good. I forgot my toothbrush but remembered before I needed it, so I grabbed one at a gas station. No biggy. For supper, we decided to stop at a Pizza Hut. Gimme a deep pan, pork sausage any day! Well, the one we stopped at wasn’t the kind you eat at. You take it with you. So…I go in and order. They say 20 minutes. There was no public restroom in Pizza Hut, so we decided to go somewhere and come back. Hubby wanted to go to the gas station. I thought the Rite Aid across the street looked like a better option. Hubby didn’t want to walk all the way to the back of the store to find the restroom. I said the gas station looked sketchy. He was driving, so he won. And this is what I was greeted with inside…a homemade “restroom” sign and whatever that was for the handle on the toilet. It kind of looked like a coat hanger, but it was stronger and thicker than that. Almost like a hairpin leg. But I did not get up close and personal and look it over. S K E T C H Y! Don’t you agree? We got our pizza and got back on the road. We stopped somewhere in West Virginia for the night around 10pm. The motel was nothing to brag about either. Stains and cigarette burns on the comforter. But it was cheap, and we were done for the night. Nothing too exciting on the road until our trip back home. Again, we had planned loosely to leave around 8am. But we got started chatting with some of the peeps that were still there and saying our goodbyes and next thing ya know, it’s noon before we got on the road. Grabbed lunch and here we go again, heading for home. Things went fine until almost 6pm. We didn’t have an exact plan of when we wanted to stop for the night. I was beat so I could have stopped anytime and just slept for 24 hours straight. Around 6pm, we came to a halt on the interstate. We could see flashing lights up ahead but had no idea what was going on. Cops and highway department trucks were coming and going to whatever had happed up ahead, but we were stopped. I cannot imagine how far back the cars had to be lined up. At one point, hubby got out and talked to a semi driver and asked if ok if he relieved himself on the other side of his rig. He said I could too, but I decided to hold it a while longer. We sat there for two hours. Some of the cars ahead of us were starting to get turned around and head back the interstate, going the wrong way. Then a highway department guy stopped and told us we could turn around and go back the way we came and take a detour to go around an end up on the interstate again. He didn’t give us a lot of details, but he said that two prisoners were being transported. They were in shackles and handcuffs. Somehow one of the prisoners busted out a back window and hurled himself out of it while they were going down the interstate at 80mph. He escaped out of the vehicle only to be hit by another vehicle. I can’t find any reports on this. It seems kind of hush-hush. But it sure makes you think. I’m pretty sure he was convicted of murder and was being transported to where he would spend the rest of his life. Was he trying to commit suicide? He surely didn’t think he would survive hurling himself out onto the interstate? What did the other prisoner witness exactly? What if we had been a minute sooner? Would we have run over the prisoner on the interstate? So many unanswered questions. The news reports are very vague. One of those things we will never know the answers to. The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Thankfully. We drove a few more hours and checked in around 11pm and got a good night’s sleep. I did see some working phone booths that morning! I have only seen maybe a shell of one, or if it had a phone, none of it worked. I picked it up and listened for the dial tone. Sure enough, it worked! I didn’t know there were any still in existence! We made it back home by 7pm Sunday night. Exhausted and happy to be home and surrounded by our three fur babies. I think they missed us.

One question people ask me a lot… “Where do you find your furniture to repaint?” So I thought I would do a little post covering just that! When I first started, like not even started, really, I used to go to auctions. A brand new auction house popped up about 5 miles from my house! I was beyond thrilled!!! My husband, maybe not so much. I was buying furniture and things to repurpose before I even painted one piece of furniture. I was like a woman possessed. And in the beginning, things were sooooo cheap! I’m not sure if it was because the auction house was new, or the whole painting/repurposing thing had not fully taken hold yet. At any rate, at one of the auctions, I left with three truckloads of furniture for well under $100! I was hooked! $5 dressers and vanities! Oh, how I wish that were still the case! Anywho…that is where I started buying my furniture. Auctions. But it really didn’t take long, and I no longer needed to go to auctions. Which was disappointing, on the one hand, because I enjoyed going to them. But on the other hand, the prices weren’t as good anymore either. But I had built up quite a stash. Once people realized what I was doing with all the “junk,” a lot of them would Facebook me and send me pictures asking if I was interested in this or that. Some free, some cheap, some I paid too much for. I had to learn to say “no”. Fast forward to when I had my store. People came in all the time, wanting to sell me pieces. At first, it was kind of awesome because I didn’t have to go anywhere to get it, it was coming to me! But that didn’t last too long. I honestly didn’t need any more until I worked through more of what I had on hand, and the store kept me so busy I didn’t have much time to work on furniture. So “no” became a lot easier unless it was something I was needing. Currently, I have furniture in my garages, carport, a few things in hubby’s shed, a barn, a house, another garage, a bin, and a semi-trailer. Stop the madness! Honestly, I plan to go on a purging spree as soon as I can. I’m sure I’m over some of it by now, lol, it is ridiculous to have this many places to look for things. I’m actually planning to clean out the house and garage we rent very soon and hopefully work it into the storage areas here around home. Fingers crossed. I also love to look at thrift stores. Though I think their pricing has gotten crazy high. Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc. If you are keeping the piece for yourself, you can stomach the price, maybe. But if you are trying to make much profit, it just isn’t really there. Estate sales are another way to go. I haven’t really been to very many of these, but I know it’s another option. I haven’t had time to go in years, but you should be able to get better profit margins at garage sales. I would love to try to make it to some this coming season, but I really don’t need to. I have more than I need already! Some days I think that I have so much there’s no way I could get through it all in my lifetime! I think that about covers it! All the places I have gotten furniture over the last 10+ years of hunting! Good luck on your quest, and may the odds be ever in your favor!

Have you ever been looking at a piece of furniture and wondering if it was good enough to flip? I am going to tell you how I make that decision! And sometimes, it just depends on how much work/time you want to devote to the piece. In the beginning, I would buy just about any piece of crap as long as it was real wood! I don’t do that much anymore. Sometimes it is worth it to pay up a little and save yourself the headache. I try to stay away from particleboard. I have done a hutch or two that was made out of it, and it was fine. I honestly didn’t realize it was particleboard until after I got it home. If I have that much trouble figuring it out, then I’m not afraid to go with it. But when you can see the particleboard disintegrating and crumbling everywhere, keep walking! One thing I forgot to check for the longest time was all around the bottom of a piece. Sometimes the piece has been stored in a garage or basement and has been soaking up moisture from the bottom and sometimes the piece is still ok. But other times the legs are rotting. If you can cut the legs a little shorter and get rid of the rotten part, then go for it. If the rot goes too high up, you may still be able to salvage it, if it didn’t get to the mainframe. Can you remove the legs entirely? And add new legs? Or ball feet? Sometimes the moisture will warp the sides of the piece. Especially if it has veneer. In my experience, it is best to walk away if that is the case. I don’t know of a way to fix that other than taking that panel out and replacing it, and that is not in my job description! If the sides are ok, but the back is all warped, you can still be in the game. Just pop the back off and replace it. I usually use luan from the lumber yard for this. Just use the old piece to measure or trace onto the new material. And If it is the back to a hutch, I have covered those with fabric before with beautiful results! Sticky drawers…not a deal-breaker. This could be for different reasons. Is it in a damp area? If it sits on a heat duct or just in your house for a while, and gets to completely dry out, it may shrink back and fit fine again. It’s incredible how much humidity can wreak havoc on these pieces sometimes. And sometimes you have to sand down the area where it is sticking or shave a little bit off or rub some soap or wax on it to get them moving well again. If the top is shot, like busted up, warped, and beyond repair…all may not be lost. If you can pry off the top easily, that may be the answer. You can get pieces at places like Menards in sizes like 18”x48” that you could replace the bad top with. They come in several sizes. Or, you could put on a couple 1×12’’s, or whatever size you needed. Is the top completely stained with markers and gross to look at? Not a problem. Just use a good stain blocker like Dixie Belle’s Boss before you paint to keep the stains from bleeding back through. Those are all the scenarios off the top off my head! I’m sure there are more, but this gives you plenty to think about and look for!

Do you have any old vintage drawers just sitting out in your garage? Or barn? For example, the main frame of the dresser was not repairable, but the drawers were too good to throw away?  And now you don’t know what to do with them?  Let me show you some of the ways I have re-purposed them in my home and maybe you will be inspired!?  I sure hope so! This is one of my favorite ways to use one on your wall.  Yep, I said wall.  First of all I cleaned it up and sealed it and then I hung it on the wall!  Some old drawers that are built right have a lot of weight to them like this one. I used screws and went directly through the drawer into wall studs in several places, making sure that the screws would be hidden by pictures or knick knacks once filled.  I knew I wanted to use a clock and I had one that was the perfect size.  I tacked in a small nail and hung it where I wanted it. The rest was just all things from around my son’s room. I really need to get up to his room and rearrange it, but you get the idea of what I was going for here. The next old drawer was not very deep.  I did the same thing with this one.  Cleaned and sealed. This one hangs in my bathroom.  I bought oil rubbed bronze cup hooks and spaced them out evenly for hanging some of my necklaces from.  As you can see, some of my necklaces are a little long, but that doesn’t bother me. This third one I am showing you hangs in my office.  It is another huge one that I adore.   Cleaned and sealed and screwed right into the studs in an inconspicuous place.  Then I just put some of my home décor in it. This drawer I did during my “everything painted black and distressed” phase.  Just added a little shelf and turned it on its side.  I used black spray paint and sanded and sealed it and screwed into the studs.  As you can see, it’s not hard to hide the screws. I just about forgot this little one.  I made it several years ago.  Not exactly my style anymore, but it’s fine for now.  I mod podged some fabric into this one and added a flower.  It hangs in our bedroom and holds remotes most of the time. Lastly, I used at least one or two drawers in my pantry for organizing and keeping some things together. And I have a really tiny one on my desk with my prescriptions in it. As you can see there are so many, many uses for these old dresser drawers!!  I didn’t even scratch the surface! Here are a few more ideas from Pinterest to keep the creative juices goin!!!

My son’s bedroom needed a lift.  Like badly.  We added that room to the house years ago.  We tore out the flat roof and made a bedroom there.  Once done, it was actually our daughter’s bedroom until the 2 of them decided to switch.  Being the girl, she needed the room that had the bathroom attached! And her old room had the perfect area for my son to set up all his “farming operation”.  Win, win. In the beginning, the room was painted all with with just a simple border around the middle of the room with pink flowers (roses I think?) on it and a tan carpet.  It was pretty blah looking back.  But she also had a gorgeous comforter with those same flowers on it and it was adorable.  I’m pretty sure we still have that comforter in the closet actually.  And then my son moved into that room.  All we really did was put a farming border up at that time.  Fast forward and my son was 16 and the room was in desperate need of some updating!  Honestly, he really didn’t care.  It was way too much work and he would have rather left it alone.  But…momma had a vision… One night I was up in his room and a couple of his girl friends came up to see what I was doing and they ended up helping me tear off some of the border.  That gave me the jump start I needed to get going!  There was no stopping this from happening now! To separate the bedroom from the play area (because he was 16 now, after all) we put up old barn doors and actually mounted to an old track from one of our barns.  Love it!!!  It rolls so nice and hides the back area when needed.  My son and one of his friends actually named that part “The Man Cove”.  They put a recliner, love seat, and a TV in there.  Silly boys.  But they had a lot of fun.  The worst part about the barn doors is that when he opens or closes them, it sounds like thunder downstairs!  Oh well, they look awesome!!! On the opposite wall from the barn doors, we put up barn siding.  We got it from our neighbor.  The pieces were in pretty bad shape, though.  There weren’t enough good pieces to go all red or all gray so we alternated colors.  To hide the rough edges of the barn siding we put a shelf all along the tops of the boards.  For the ceiling, we used corrugated tin.  I have another spot in my house that I would like to do this with, whenever I can get Hubby talked into it! We went with a weathered gray wood laminate from Menards for the flooring.  Love it.  I would do it all over again. I painted his desk red.  It had actually been my husband’s grandpa’s desk.  It had a glass top so I slipped a bunch of pictures of Brendan under the glass.  Most were of him on the farm doing what he loves. The red side table next to his bed belonged to my grandma, so we were able to incorporate two family heirlooms into the room.  I absolutely adore mixing the antiques (especially when they have meaning) and the new together. For his dresser, I just painted the main frame red and kept the drawers wood.  I didn’t want to overdo the red.  So that’s the gist of it!  How this one room went from being nothing but a flat roof, to our daughters room, and then to our son’s room!  I’m sure I have pictures of when they built the walls up and formed the room, but I won’t bore you with those!