If you read my bio here at Focussed Friends you’ll see that I am really into furniture refreshing. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now. Mostly I’ve done it for my own home but I find the odd piece here and there that I love and work on and then sell to someone else for their home. I stumbled on this little hobby completely by accident. I had a piece of furniture that I painted for my living room and then was shopping one day and found a another piece that I liked better. To rationalize this new purchase I sold the piece of furniture and replaced it with a new one that I then refreshed. Fast forward a few months I found another one that I liked better than that one so I flipped another one. I found that people liked my work. In no time I started adding a few pieces here and there and created a nice little side hustle.
The money I make from the furniture refreshing I use to put back into the home. I buy things that I really want or that I think would make our home better. Last year I purchased all the material for a new fireplace install in our living room. My husband did the building and we put in an electric. I also bought new patio furniture for our refreshed backyard this past summer. The kids hangout space is getting a revamp. The furniture flipping money has purchased paint supplies furniture etc. My family, mostly my husband, really enjoy my little hobby.
Lately I have felt that I have been doing too much of that and not focussing on the things that needed to be done in our home. Over the holidays I decided that I would take a break for a while and get caught up around my own house. I don’t want to be known as a cobbler whose children have no shoes if you know what I mean. I did several projects including a very large wall unit in my living room.This past week I did three pieces. A small desk, a small little table and a sofa table. As I’m writing this I am waiting for the first coat of wax to dry on A fourth piece. Which is our dining room table that came to us a few decades ago for very little money but has been in need of a makeover for several years. Having children in the house it didn’t seem a big priority. But the rest of the house is starting to look so nice the table was looking like a bruise in a perfectly beautifully ripe apple.
I source my products to refresh from many places. Thrift stores, Facebook marketplace, and amazingly and generously so many of my friends and acquaintances just drop things at our house. For a while my husband wasn’t even able to park properly in our garage because there was so much furniture in there. But I have managed to wiggle it all down and give him back his space.
When I have too many things and I get overwhelmed. I really have to have a good talk with myself and decide what’s really reasonable in terms of how much time they will take, how much effort and how much money. I do make a nice profit off of the pieces but if one of those above things makes it not worth doing then I won’t do it. Just this weekend I had a hard look around the house and decided that there were two chairs that I had purchased to refresh and flip. I knew that the amount of work that would go into them, was is going to be more than I will be able to sell them for. If I’m going to put in a lot of extra work on something I want to either make the money or have it for my own home. Those two chairs as lovely as they were would not make a lot of money and would be a lot of wor. Plus I don’t have room in my house for them. Before I could change my mind I listed them for sale and they were gone within a few hours. At a tidy profit of course.
The largest piece I’ve ever done is a three piece wall unit which is my current favourite thing that I’ve done. The transformation was phenomenal. It gives the living room beautiful height and it’s a great place for me to display all of my little knickknacks and pictures in a nice way. I’ve already redone the layout twice – once for Christmas. Then with a fresh look going to spring.
I will keep doing the furniture refreshing either for my home or for sale as long as I can. Or at least as long as I am still enjoying it. Once it doesn’t become enjoyable any more I’ll find something else. However my health might also stop me from continuing at some point. I have Parkinson’s disease. And I expect that sometime down the road that will preclude me from this fun hobby of mine. People ask me all the time how on earth do you have the energy to do so much? Well, I feel like I have to use it or lose it. I want to do as much as I can while I can. Not just the furniture refreshing or crafting or painting. But travel is important. Spending time with friends and family (although Covid is making that very impossible right now and I’m not very happy about that.). And most importantly out of everything my family has to come first. My husband my two 14-year-old boys and my seven-year-old daughter. They need me and I need them. It’s a critical time in the growth of my children. I want them more than anything to know that they are so dearly loved. It’s also very important to me that they grow up seeing their mother achieve her dreams. Knowing that I have great strength and determination and that I don’t ever sit back and wait for anything or anyone to make my life better. I make my life better. I am in control. I will do everything to continue on with everything that I love to do in my life.
No matter who you are or the circumstances that you are in in your life, you have control of your life. You can make it whatever you desire by hard work, determination and your imagination. Even if by accident or by plan you find yourself doing something you love that is a gift. I encourage everyone around me to find your passion and then go out and do something about it. We don’t know what life is going to give us. Spend your days doing things you love.
So that said there’s this dining room table, and I need to do some sanding. Maybe some laundry.
Focused Friends 
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