Where is the furniture now? 9 updates!

How long does it take to sell furniture? It depends on several different factors, from the time of the year to its mass appeal.

After nearly a year of writing about the pieces I refinish, I’m often asked how long it takes to sell furniture. And it depends on:

• If the piece has mass or niche appeal
• If it has a fair asking price
• How many places it’s posted for sale
• What time of the year it is

If you sell on Etsy, you have a bigger market but then you have to cover the cost of shipping. If you sell on Facebook, you have local customers but then everyone wants a bargain.

There’s always a balancing act.

So, what about the furniture and decor makeovers I post about? I keep some of my projects but most of them I sell at my booth at Homemade at The Barn.

It’s about having the right customer at the right time. And that isn’t always quick.

With those things in mind, let’s look at 9 of my pieces from 2021…

Did they sell and how long did it take?

Where is the furniture now? 9 updates!

Floral chest of drawers

3 weeks

This is one of my favourite pieces from 2021.

I reduced the target market by adding the floral transfer to this chest of drawers. Maybe it would have sold quicker without it. But for every week that it was there, it was making an impact.

It sold in Spring which is a good time of year for a floral piece like this.

Wine cabinet

6 months

This wine cabinet was one of my first pieces when I moved into my booth. People showed an interest in it but it was never quite right.

After several months I took it home and painted over the stencil on the top. I thought that it might be reducing potential customers.

And after a couple more months, someone got in touch about it. They’d just moved into a new home and would like it.

And funnily enough, they liked it with the stencil, so I put it back on for them.

It was just a case of waiting for the right person, and the right time for them, which was after 6 months!

Green bookshelf

1 week

The original bookshelf wasn’t much to look at. It was free and you can see why.

So how did it whizz off the shelves after only one week? It underwent quite a dramatic transformation. It took a week to sell and generated another commission in that time too.

This sold in late summer which is typically a quiet time for furniture sales. But the wallpaper and dark stain had an autumnal feel to it, so it turned out to be the perfect time.

Pink chest of drawers

11 weeks

That’s quite a long time for a simple chest of drawers. It had many compliments on the pink colour but didn’t get snapped up very quickly.

It’s Corona Mexican pine, so a style that’s quite easy to find and perhaps not what everyone wants from a refinished piece.

But the customer who bought it after those 11 weeks was thrilled with it. It was worth the wait.

White bird cabinet

8 hours

I don’t expect my furniture to sell instantly. Especially having a booth in a physical shop. And that’s fine because it can take me weeks to finish a piece, with the limited time I have to work on them.

So, when I see a piece that I’ve just delivered and organised my space around has instantly sold… Well, it’s both lovely and leaves me with a gap to fill!

I love pieces like this. Yes, they’re more niche but they’re also more interesting to create. And niche wasn’t an issue for selling slowly on this occasion.

Grey sideboard

Unsold

This piece made its way to The Barn at the end of October and is yet unsold. Often people say they are going to repaint something because it hasn’t sold quickly but there’s the right customer for everything, eventually.

This sideboard is a neutral colour and more mass-market than a lot of my pieces. So why don’t I think it has sold yet? Possibly because of the time it went to the booth. It was there for November and December which is when people focus on Christmas, not redecorating their homes.

I’m confident that the right person will find it in the next few months. We’ll have to wait and see!

Bumblebee footstool

1 week

This footstool has a special place in my heart because it was the first-ever piece that I sold at The Barn.

My first sale and it was this lovely little bumblebee footstool. I’ve since discovered that I can’t go wrong with bumblebee fabric.

Quite often it’s the little pieces that keep a booth ticking over while waiting for the right customers for the big ones.

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Side table

Unsold

You may remember that I made a post about redoing this side table. I changed it from teal with a peacock stencil to a stained top with a dark base.

So, did the new version sell?

No. And why? Because it’s back on my to-do list. I noticed when restocking that it had been scratched and needed to come home to get fixed.

It’s a small fix but hasn’t topped the priority list yet.

You might wonder why I’m mentioning it. But scratches happen and things break. It’s helpful to remember that not everything is in your control.

Magazine rack

<0 hours

This sold before it was even for sale.

This was one of my most recent makeovers. A lovely little magazine rack with a peacock feature.

I’d put a price tag on it ready to take to my booth the next day. When someone got in touch to ask if I was selling it.

They had seen the blog post about the makeover and liked it enough to get in touch. They don’t live near the Barn so wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t posted about it online.

You just never know where your customers might come from.

And there you have it. 9 makeovers. 7 sales. 1 back on the to-do list.

I hope you found it interesting to get a glimpse behind the scenes.

I’d love to hear if you experience the same factors when selling pieces. Or as a customer too. Do you buy furniture at specific times of the year?

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like a peek at the beautiful home of my booth.

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