Do you think refinishing antique furniture could be profitable?
March 8, 2010
I enjoy buying secondhand furniture from garage sales and charity shops and refinishing the wood or upholstery to then use in my own home. I think I do it well enough to be able to sell pieces but I'm not sure if it's a worthwhile hobby or if it would be a waste of money to do more pieces than I need for myself. Any thoughts? Would you ever buy used/antique furniture for your own home?
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I am a 37 year experienced painter(retired now) and also did alot of restoring and refinishing furniture in a small shop of mine (20×20)..It can be well profitable but with refinishing, never give A "straight price" for A job and offer services by the hours spent on the project. Some finishes will come right off with one application of stripper, when others may take 5 or 6 applications, thus costing more in materials and labor. I have lost some money on A few projects when I first started the buisiness from a "straight price" method, and yet made alot on them too. I ended up converting to strictly Hourly, kept tags on each piece of furniture that recorded the time spent and date etc…Some finishes and stripping could take a few days due to drying times, working times, detailed trims etc.Some small steps may take only 20 or 30 minuates at a time so you record each time it is worked on.Keep in mind if you ever get set up big enough to have a dipping tank for strippers that you can literaly dip the whole piece of furniture in it and let soak in stripper, that afterwards dismantling it may be required due to the stripper eating at the glues in the dowel joints etcetera and making the piece wobbly.When I dipped furniture like that I always let the customer aware that I would have to replace all dowels and specialty joints with wood glue on them..insert new dowels and reglue, so they will expect the cost to be quite high, but yet honest hourly and recorded. Never dip a piece of furniture and not replace dowels and glued areas or you will end up with some unhappy customers about a month after thier piece of furniture starts to wobble or fall apart. Alot of people strip furniture, redo it and do not replace dowels and glue, only to find thier new pretty finished desk falling apart
I do, but I refinish them myself. I’ve thought about doing the same thing your proposing. If you had a large area to work and ways to set up an assembly line type of deal, I think it might be profitable. By assembly line I mean including a stripping tank and a paint booth so pieces can be done quickly. It is such a detail oriented, time consuming process I don’t see how money could be made otherwise.
My Mom has a small business doing exactly what you’re talking about and she rarely has a problem selling the finished pieces. We have a couple of pieces she did in our house. Good luck.
I do. But as someone who has done exactly what you’re doing, I enede up selling my pieces at a market in our home town every weekend. This did well, but I had to man the stall while I could have been refinishing more furniture. For a one man band, this is very labor intensive for not much reward. But I think that if you could at least get the preparation work done by someone else (sanding etc.) than you may be able to do it bette. Otherwise, if you enjoy it, just do it…carefully pick pieces that are appealing to the public and get an outlet without overheads…a friend’s shop, a coffee place, anywhere that will let you display a couple of pieces and some business cards. Storing the finished furniture is another problem!!
http://www.clever-kitchen-designs.com
Very.