Yahoo News I'm a furniture flipper - I spend £10 on strangers' junk and sell for £1k
A full-time furniture flipper spends as little as £10 transforming strangers' unwanted junk into pieces she sells for £1,000 each. Kerry Willets, 45, learned her trade by charging people to repair or upcycle sentimental furniture they wanted to keep.
But now people seek her out on social media and offer her bits headed for landfill which she takes off their hands for free - nabbing other freebies on Facebook Marketplace
She 'gives them a new lease of life' turning them into high-end art deco items which she sells on for £1,000 a piece. She considers herself a go-between for people wanting to get rid of their old junk and spends between £10 and £15 making over each piece.
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Kerry, from Staffordshire, said: “People say to me all the time - if I hadn’t flipped their old furniture, they’d have unfortunately taken it to the tip. Some of the pieces I get are particularly beaten up and in a bad way. But if you can see through that, you can unlock the true potential from pretty much any piece.”
Kerry started her furniture-flipping business on March 19, 2021 - initially working on a commission basis. She was a stay-at-home mum-of-two, and wanted to find a way of making some extra money.
Having stumbled across a furniture flipping Instagram account, she decided to upcycle her own pieces and sell them for £200-300 each.
“The job just fits well around my family,” she said. “So I’ve just continued with it. Seeing things going from beginning-to-end gives me job satisfaction. Plus, it’s good for the environment.”
The first item Kerry ever upcycled was a picture frame - then a shoe rack made from old scaffold boards. She painted a dressing table navy blue - before she learnt how to give furniture a 'natural varnish look'.
After posting her results on social media, Kerry says her upcycles became 'really popular' - and began working on commission for friends and family. Charging £2-300 to make over old pieces of furniture in peoples’ storage, people would pay her to renovate items with sentimental value,
She said: “I used to do commission work, when I first started. Sometimes people would give me their furniture that used to belong to their relatives who’d passed away. I’d upcycle them for them to then take back.
“Back then, I’d charge £200 to £300. I’d look after my children, then makeover around one piece every two-to-three weeks.
“A woman once gave me a bureau her grandad had made - she couldn’t part with it because of sentimental value. I painted it and put an art deco design on it - lots of gold, diamond and triangle shapes.”
Kerry spent a year upcycling on commission - before deciding to take on items being given away for free, and selling them. Now, she saves items from going to landfill by flipping furniture for free.
“My favourite unwanted item I’ve upcycled so far would probably be a big cabinet,” she added. “It’s a big art deco cabinet - I did a gold sunburst design on it. As you pulled the opening down, it made a big sun.”
Kerry sold it on for £1,000 - her standard price for her flipped furniture.
She added: “People say, ‘unfortunately, this will be going to the tip in the morning.’ The cabinet looked quite bad in the pictures, it had a lot of water damage on it. It was quite mucky, before I flipped it. But I saw through that, into its potential.”
