Introduction
Over the past week, my posts have been rather long and focused on my silver collecting and investing. If you are interested in silver or alternative investments, you should check out my recent posts.
In today's post I am going to change topic and focus on another area of interest that my wife and I enjoy, furniture renovation. We love renovating old furniture pieces, either to bring the piece back to life to decorate our home or to help find a new home for the revived furniture. 👍
This past time of ours is definitely a labour of love and a hobby. Any profits that we do make from it basically go back into funding the next purchase for a future project, plus all the tools and materials we require to get the job done.
The Process
Our process is quite simple and we try to make it as repeatable as possible.
- Step 1: Buy Right
- Step 2: Make your Plan
- Step 3: Get your Materials
- Step 4: Let the Magic Happen
- Step 5: Keep It or List It
- Step 6: Post It on HIVE
Step 1: Buy Right
Each of the steps in this process, is very important, but doing this first step well makes the remainder of the process so much easier.
You may be thinking, "What does 'Buy Right' even mean?"
Well in fact it means a whole lot of things that can differ from project to project. For the purposes of this post I want to keep it simple, so I will focus on four key principles that I apply to most projects:
- Cost - If you are planning to sell your finished product, then you need to make sure that you buy the item for a price that you are confident you can make a profit on, be sure to factor in all the costs that go into a project, such as your time, tools and materials.
- Quality - Quality, quality, quality! For me, quality is non-negotiable, you need to have full confidence in the quality of what you create, especially if your plan is to sell the piece. If you try to cut corners and buy low quality furniture that may have defectives, then this probably is not a long term operation for you. You basically run the risk of jeopardizing the trust of your customers, something that is extremely difficult to regain.
- Marketability - You need to understand your market! Always ask yourself the following questions, "Are people looking to buy similar pieces to the one you plan to create?" And, "Are you able to provide them with the product they are looking for?" Take the example of a high quality timber TV cabinet, as beautiful as it might be, there just is not enough market demand for that sort of furniture anymore. In today's day and age, with flat screens and sound bars mounted to the wall, large timber TV cabinets have, largely become superfluous.
- Location - Where you have to collect the furniture piece from is an important consideration. Obviously closer is better. The further away the item is, the more petrol you will require, the higher the risk of the item being damaged in transit and the greater the inconvenience if the transaction does not conclude successfully.
Step 2: Make your Plan
There are so many ways to make a plan, so I am not going to spend too much time on this topic. A plan to my wife is a collection on lists and vision boards. A plan to me is excel spreadsheets, gantt charts and detailed costings.
Neither my plan nor my wife's plan is the better plan. A good plan is a plan that works, and what works for me does not work for my wife. When we do take on much bigger projects then key project planning and scheduling definitely do play an essential role.
The message I would like to convey in this section is very simple, "If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail". You may get lucky on some projects when everything just comes together with little to no pre-planning, but over the long run this approach could prove costly and result in re-work or failed projects.
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Step 3: Get your Materials
The materials required for this project were quite simple and relatively cheap.
- Spray Paint - A 310g can of White Knights Squirts Paint and Prime, you may need two cans depending on the number of coats of paint you have planned for your item. The colour we went with on this chair was GLOSS CHERRY RED.
- Fabric - Pop down to your local fabric store to buy the fabric pattern of your choice. Remember, not all fabrics are created equal. For this type of project you will need a harder wearing fabric, that is easy to clean and the colours do not fade easily.
- Staple Gun with Staples - A good staple gun is a very useful tool to have on hand as it can be reused again and again on future projects. You do not have to buy the most expensive brand, but it is worth buying a quality one that will last and give you a good result every time.
Step 4: Let the Magic Happen
This is where the fun begins and the magic happens. It is an incredibly rewarding feeling taking a tired, rundown piece of furniture and transforming it into a revived piece that is literally as good as new.
I often find that the amount of fun and enjoyment you get out of making the magic happen is often linked to how your pre-planning went. It is very frustrating when you need to head back to the hardware store multiple times to pick up more paint, or realise that the fabric you chose is just not suitable, or that your staple gun is not powerful enough. A lot of these frustrations and mishaps can be avoided with the most basic form of planning.
Once you have created your masterpiece and taken the time to admire how clever and creative you are, then we get to decision time. I love the next step as I love making decisions, but for some people this is by far the most challenging step to overcome.
Step 5: Keep It or List It
For me, by the time I am at this step, I have already made the decision about what will happen to the completed piece of furniture. For my wife, on the other hand, she often finds this step quite difficult. She gets quite emotionally attached to a lot her creations and I think if she could keep them all, she probably would.
The red chair is this photo was a definite keeper when it was completed a few years ago. Time has moved on and so to have our our family decor requirements and wants. At the start of this year we listed this chair for sale and it was gone within a couple days. So with this piece of furniture we got to enjoy the best of both world's.
Step 6: Post it on HIVE
This final step is just a bit of fun, but jokes aside it is such a smart thing to do. Imagine if you could generate a higher profit return from the upvotes on you HIVE blog than you could from the actual profits from selling the furniture.
It is a win-win situation! You can even look back at your blogs in a few months time and relieve the memorable experience of creating something amazing! 💪😃👍
Post authored by @strenue
