About Upcycled Decor: More Love, Less Landfill

Like so many people, our initial love of the pre-owned was born out of our own thrifty instincts and a huge reluctance to pay full price. This was especially true for furniture, home decor, lighting. Especially when the quality of many newer items are now mass-produced with poor materials and no durability. But it’s not just about the money. There’s also something thrilling on the one hand about “discovering” something as opposed to just “buying”. Stumbling upon some unique piece that you can’t find in a big box store or even a high-end boutique because they just don’t make them like that anymore.

Add to that, when you acquire a vintage piece, it’s a little bit of history. It was part of someone’s home, integral to a life somewhere. Someone cooked a meal in that pot, served wine in that glass, read a book in that chair. Great new pieces are full of potential, and they have their place, for sure.

But vintage home decor and antique furniture have a story. And you become a part of it when it’s yours.

While we do really love a good bargain, and we also find it so satisfying to buy something with a history, we have become even more aware of the cost of not buying vintage. We are creating so much waste, dumping literal tons of usable items into dumpsters, and eventually landfills, while we produce new, lower quality items. Our shift to pre-owned started from just being budget-conscious and living within our means without sacrificing style. It grew to a true love and appreciation for the beauty, craftsmanship and history of vintage room decor and furniture.  And that affection deepened when we realized how much waste we ourselves produce and those around us. 

On top of that, we’ve talked a bit here and there in our blog about the devastation of evictions, maybe one of the worst types of waste. Because whatever happened in those personal stories, no one wants their whole life dumped on a front yard. We were probably six months into our furniture flipping business the first time we passed by a scene like this one:

While we were no strangers to picking up an abandoned table or an old lamp next to someone’s garbage can, we were overwhelmed by scenes like this. Evictions are a special case, different from the voluntary disposal of items that we gleefully picked up. This is involuntary loss of a whole life, sometimes multiple lives. For a couple months, we passed on by, it felt wrong to benefit from that. 

Then we saw a scene similar to that photo above. We drove past, turned around and came back. It was getting dark. We had a pair of chairs and a lamp already. But a huge dumpster was parked in front of the eviction site. We knew by morning the furniture and lamps and dishes and so much more would be lost–a second time–not only the original owner, but now to everyone else who could benefit. 

We got out, and started picking pieces up. We couldn’t do anything about the past, though we were respectful and more grateful than gleeful. There were beautiful pieces of vintage solid wood furniture, high quality, well-loved decor, and we became determined to take as much as we could. Yes, we would make money on the things we took. But as we soon discovered, those items had value for us, and the customers who were delighted to rehome these incredible finds.

Evictions are awful for people. They are a terrible final sign that something went very, very wrong. They are also awful for the planet, and so we do a little, tiny bit about that when the moment presents itself.

We would rather fill our pockets than the planet.

So, yes, we have a love affair going with those roadside chairs and estate sale china sets! 

The business itself, selling vintage decor and retro toys and games, flipping furniture, upcycling useful items into something new, all of that was an evolution. We were hooked on the fun of the find, and using decor in our own homes. And then we discovered we could make money finding and selling thrifted home decor and vintage furniture for profit. We love what we do because it is such a thrill to see someone else discover (from us) the perfect brass floor lamp from the 70s or that 1930s Edwardian table or just a really great pair of solid wood nightstands for the kids’ bedroom.

We get to protect the planet, a tiny bit, one roadside chair at a time. Our customers get something they love, whether it makes a room more beautiful, more useful or better orgainzed. And we make money while we do it.

We might be a little unusual because we bring both decades of experience buying and selling vintage furniture and home decor. But we also bring business backgrounds and experience in how to grow a side hustle with strategy and planning. People have asked us how we get so “lucky” with our great finds, and building a business picking up curbside finds and garage sale bargains.

We started with nothing but a few things lying around the house and built a five-figure business in 12 months.

We are super grateful for our success, but it wasn’t luck. 

If you want to find bargains for yourself, there are ways to do it better and smarter, even if it’s just for your own enjoyment, you can improve your luck, too. 

You can create a business flipping furniture and selling vintage home decor.

You will need a strategy, and patience and persistence. But even patience and persistence won’t work if you’re flying blind, not learning as you go, and leveraging those lessons to get smarter about how to run your business for a profit. You need to understand inventory management, pricing strategy, your ideal customer profile and digital marketing.

Yeah, we’re still talking about those old chairs we picked up off the side of the road.

But for us it’s a business. We treat it like one, and it pays us that way. You will find here lots of advice on how we became professional furniture flippers and home decor resellers. And it will always come back to the same goal: treat it like a business, work really hard, and get much smarter. The money will come faster and easier (not easy! but less hard) and you will get that incredible feeling when you know you’re doing something right and making more money. And hopefully, enjoying what this unique business offers: bringing customers the delight and thrill of discovering something pre-owned and unqiue, while also reducing needless waste.

This all began with a personal love for the thrill of the find, and the satisfaction of beautifully made things from the past.

These days, we‘re picky pickers, who are thrilled by the thrift and think you can save the planet while protecting your pocketbook. We rescue, recover, restore, repair, and rehome. We don’t quite dumpster dive but we brake very hard for curbside finds so please don’t tail too closely!

We believe that old is the new, new and so do our customers. Upcycled Decor was born on the floor of Goodwill but has always been in our blood. Dorm rooms, first apartments, forever homes—all have had touches of found treasures (and lovingly transitioned out through spring clean garage sales.) Currently, our unique, high-quality (think solid wood and real leather) with a touch of quirky and fun retro decor (we love an over-the-top Capodimonte lamp as much as we do a great 80s IKEA one) attract more and more people everyday and we hope this is just a beginning.