Fixing Up Furniture: Repair It, Paint It, Sell It

What you actually do

There are two businesses here, and the first one funds the second.

Repair. A neighbour has a kitchen chair that wobbles, a drawer that won't slide, a bookshelf that came out of a flat pack wrong. You tighten it, glue it, square it up, and charge them for an hour. No materials, almost no risk.

Flip. You find a solid piece nobody wants, usually left out at the kerb or going cheap at a garage sale. You clean it, fix what's broken, sand it, paint or oil it, and sell it for more than the paint cost.

Start with repair. It teaches you what furniture is actually made of, and it pays the same day.

What it costs to start

• Wood glue, about $8. It fixes more furniture than any other single thing.
• A screwdriver set and an adjustable wrench, about $20 if your family has none.
• Sandpaper in a few grits, about $10.
• A small tin of paint or furniture oil, about $20 to $30. Buy it for a specific piece, not in advance.

So $40 to $70, and the glue and tools last for years. Wait until you have a piece before you buy paint, because the colour that sells is the one that suits the thing in front of you.

Ask a parent where you're allowed to work. Sanding makes a lot of dust and painting needs air moving through, so this is a garage or a back step job, not a bedroom job.

Find your first job this week

1. Walk around your own home and find three things that are broken or loose. Fix them. That's your practice, and it tells you whether you like this at all.
2. Tell four adults you know: "I fix wobbly furniture. $20 an hour, and I'll tell you honestly if it isn't worth fixing." That second half is why people trust a 14 year old with their chairs.
3. For your first flip, wait for a piece of solid wood. Tap it. Solid wood sounds dense and takes a screw. Chipboard with a wood-look wrapper sounds hollow, crumbles when you sand it, and is not worth your Saturday.

Say no to anything with water damage, a bad smell, or a wobble in the frame itself. Those are the pieces that eat a month and sell for nothing.

What to charge

For repairs, charge for time. $20 an hour is fair for careful work, and most jobs are one hour. Tell the customer the estimate before you start, and if it turns out to be a two-hour job, say so before hour two.

For flips, add up what you spent and what your time was worth. Then look at what similar pieces sell for near you before you set a number. A small dresser you picked up at the kerb, with $25 of paint and six hours of work, might sell for $80 to $150 depending on your town. Six hours is a lot, so the piece has to be worth it before you start.

Write down every piece: what you paid, what you spent, what it sold for, and how many hours it took. Hours are the thing people forget, and they're what tells you whether flipping is worth more to you than repairs.

Rules and staying safe

Read this with a parent before you start. This idea has real tools in it.

• A parent agrees the workspace and is home while you use any tool. Power tools only if they've trained you and said yes.
• Safety glasses whenever you sand, cut or hammer. A dust mask when you sand.
• Paint and stripper fumes need open air. Read the label with an adult, and follow what it says about ventilation. Never use a chemical stripper indoors.
• Old paint can contain lead, especially on furniture made before the 1980s. Don't sand paint on an old piece until a parent has looked at it and decided, because sanding is what puts it in the air you breathe.
• Ask before you take anything from a curb. In most places it's fine once it's out for collection, but rules vary by town and a parent can check yours.
• Sell to people you know, or with a parent's help and a parent's account. Never deliver furniture alone to a stranger's house.
• Take payment when the piece is handed over, in cash or by e-transfer to a parent's account.

What Jacob would do

Jacob is 15 and lives in Toronto, where people move apartments constantly and leave good furniture in the lobby on the first of every month. He wouldn't have to look far for stock.

Being the spreadsheet type, he'd start with repairs in his own building, because the customers are twenty steps from his door and pay cash the same evening. He'd track hours per job in his phone, and after a month he'd know something useful: whether the fiddly repairs pay better than the big paint jobs. For most people they do, and Jacob's the kind of person who'd follow the number rather than the fun.

When it stops being fun

Hour five of sanding, when the arm you sand with is done and the piece still looks like it did at hour three. Paint that dries streaky. A drawer that will not sit square no matter what you do. A dresser in the garage for six weeks that your family is now walking around.

The way through is to take on fewer, better pieces, and to keep doing repairs alongside. Repairs pay today and clear your head. Flips pay in a month, if they pay at all, and that's a real difference worth understanding before you fill the garage.