Pay Your Rent and Level Up Your Home with THIS Creative Side Hustle

Mindy:
Today’s episode is about how you can have nice things even when you can’t afford to buy them.

Scott:
Yeah, we booked Kyle William today because so many of us in the BiggerPockets money community and the fire community are just super frugal and may go really long stretches without the nice things in life. While we kind of, in some cases grind our way towards financial freedom, that can include giving up things like a nice kitchen, a nice bathroom, nice furniture or other aesthetic stuff. So for example, I’m guilty of this. I’ve spent 10 years living in progressively less tiny duplexes interrupted by one stint as a renter, and Mindy I think has done 11 live-in flips in her life. I might venture to say that you could have spent almost half of your adult life living in a construction zone that you’re working on. I

Mindy:
Would agree with that. Scott. Kyle is here to show us that it’s not an either or. And if you like nice things, living in a beautiful space, having top-notch luxury items like designer furniture, you can have that and still save and pursue financial independence. Heck, you can even make money while you build out that perfect home environment. Hello. Hello, hello and welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me as always is my not mid-century modern co-host Scott Trench.

Scott:
I may not be mid-century modern, but you are my MCM Co-host Money Co-host, Mindy. Alright, let’s do it.

Mindy:
I love it.

Scott:
Alright, we’re here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else. Introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.

Mindy:
Kyle William, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money podcast. I am so excited to talk to you today.

Kyle:
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’m also very excited to have this conversation and to share this space today

Mindy:
You are primarily on TikTok making videos, showing everybody the awesome things that they can do, and the first video that I saw of yours was one where you used a comment that said your problem is not that you’re poor, it’s that you suck at being poor. If you want nice stuff, you’re going to have to take some old stuff and make it nice. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you mean by this?

Kyle:
Yeah, yeah. I really loved that audio that was trending for a certain time on TikTok and I think that it really just relates to me and the work I do because I love furniture and interior design and the history of these things, but I can’t afford the brand new things or from the vintage stores and stores like that. So I have to find things on the street, on Facebook marketplace and I make them what they should be or what they could be. And that mentality I think really helps me a lot in terms of really being true to my design aesthetic, but staying true to my budget and my wallet as well.

Mindy:
I think that’s really important because a lot of people are like, Ooh, this is really cute. I’ll figure out how to pay for it later. No, figure out how to pay for it now and if you can’t afford it now, then figure out a way to obtain it without paying top dollar. I love it. I love the upcycle, I love the recycle, I love the just making it new and I’m super fascinated with how you’re, you’re finding these items.

Kyle:
Yeah, my interest in this really started when I was living in New York and there’s a big stooping culture, which is finding things just that people leave on the sidewalk in the street and just taking it home and making it new again or cleaning it up. And so I started doing that and then I found Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and these places where people are just trying to get rid of stuff. They don’t need it anymore. It’s a little broken, they don’t know how to fix it, so they just get rid of it and sometimes they don’t know the real value of it. Sometimes maybe they don’t care, but those are the opportunities where I swoop in and I find things that I’ve been looking for for such a long time or that I know can resell at a really high price and those are the main avenues that I look for.

Scott:
When did this start? How did you develop this mentality?

Kyle:
Yeah. Honestly, from a very young age, I started making my own furniture. I wanted a bed frame and I couldn’t find anything online that looked like that, so I just found my mom’s old saw and got some wood from Home Depot and just put it together and I realized that I really loved having personal touches on everything in my space and so I just started doing that and then I got to college and got to my first adult apartment and I realized everything is very expensive. I looked for a couch for the first time and I saw that even at places like Ikea or Target, they were still 600 to a thousand dollars and I just genuinely couldn’t afford that, but I still needed a couch, so I had to make it work by sourcing it other places.

Mindy:
We’ll be back after the break and when we’re back we’ll be breaking down the skills you need to start fixing and flipping furniture and make decent money doing it.

Scott:
And we’re back. Kyle William is telling us all about how you can start a side gig finding old furniture and flipping it for a sizable profit.

Mindy:
So let’s talk about the process of flipping furniture. It sounds super awesome. You just find something old, you make it look beautiful. There’s more to it than that I know because I haven’t flipped it, I’ve just rehabbed it for my own self. Walk us through one of your most recent, first of all, where did you find it and is there a lot of competition for this?

Kyle:
Yeah, so I think my most recent flip was something from Facebook marketplace, spent a lot of time on Facebook marketplace and there are competitions. Sometimes I’ll see something that I know will be an amazing find and it’s been up for 30 minutes and I message the buyer or the seller and they’re already saying, oh, it’s sold and this is in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. So sometimes there is some people have the same eye and they are after the same things and you just sometimes have to get to it first and sometimes you luck out. But my most recent thing, I found this vintage lane, which is a pretty sought after furniture brand resales for a really high prices vintage lane record player or record cabinet, and I got it for like 60 bucks. It has one broken hinge, so they just didn’t either know how to repair it or weren’t interested in learning. So that’s a great opportunity for me because these resell for in the thousands sometimes and good enough conditions. So it’s really about finding the right pieces, taking the gamble with paying for it, but knowing the potential for it.

Scott:
So how did that one turn out?

Kyle:
That one I’m actually still in the middle with. I just got it recently, but that’s the one I’m most excited about. But in general, some of these pieces that are a little higher quality, they take a little longer to sell. So you do have to be patient, especially if you’re wanting these higher prices for them. But I did get a cabinet by the same maker for free just because it was so big they didn’t know how to move it, they were moving, so they just gave it away for free and I ended up selling it for I think $700. So it really is just being there when people are giving it away and knowing what to do with it after.

Scott:
Alright, let’s deconstruct this $700 gain here. So somebody’s moving, they post a Facebook marketplace that they got this cabinet, it’s valuable and you show up and you move it. How much do you have to pay to store it, keep it, rehab it, refurbish it or whatever to get it ready to sell for this $700 gain? How much time does that take?

Kyle:
Yeah, a great question. Moving it I find very creative ways to fit large things in my car. So with this one it was just kind of two, what do you drive? I drive an SUV vw. It has a big enough of a trunk, but sometimes it’s duct taping the trunk closed because something doesn’t fit perfectly, you’re taking multiple trips. But I am very frugal when it comes to also getting things places. I never buy U-Haul, never pay extra money for shipping or anything, so I just try to make it work. And so with this piece specifically, it didn’t need a lot of work, so I didn’t spend too much on fixing it up. But in terms of storing it, my apartment is kind of littered with these projects. I keep them all just on hand. I have a backyard that I fix them up in, but on a very busy week or month right now, there’s just a few pieces just around me right now. It gets a little hectic, so I try to have a quick turnaround as much as possible.

Scott:
I think you’re the only person I’ve talked to in 500 episodes of the BiggerPockets Money podcast that should be driving a pickup truck at some point, so maybe one day after. And if these flips there, sorry. What part of the world do you live in right now?

Kyle:
I’m currently in California.

Scott:
Okay, so you’re in California. This wouldn’t have worked in New York City, you would’ve had to have some other type of arrangement in order to flip this kind of furniture At that point

Kyle:
When I was in New York, it was mainly I couldn’t sand furniture necessarily. So it was mainly painting or scraping. And in terms of getting things places, it was an Uber Excel or it was asking a friend to help you carry it 10 blocks or taking it on the subway sometimes. So it was a creative process, maybe more so when I was living back in New York.

Scott:
So how long did it take you to sell this cabinet that we were just talking about?

Kyle:
Yeah, the cabinet we were just talking about, I posted it on some of the more vintage collection places like First Dibs and that’s where you sell a higher price item. Sometimes Facebook marketplace, people are wanting slightly cheaper things, so in order to get more for it, you have to put it on sites like this first dibs, secondhand, a few places like that. I think this one took a few weeks to sell and so it was just kind of sitting in my living room. But when it did a buyer actually in the same city, these are kind of global sites so you can offer shipping and whatnot, but someone in the same city offered to buy it and so I just drove it to them and that kind of cut out any middleman and that was kind of the best case scenario.

Mindy:
What types of furniture are you looking for and is there anything that you would absolutely not touch?

Kyle:
Yeah, so types of furniture, mid-century modern is the most popular. Any MCM is the abbreviation. If you’re scrolling through Facebook marketplace, a lot of things say they’re mid-century modern, but that either just means that they’re in the style, but really they’re made out of plywood from IKEA or they’re just not that style at all. So it is sometimes you have to know what to look for, even filtering through the catalog in mid-century modern already and anything I like. Also smaller projects, so smaller dressers, chairs because my space is limited, so anything that’s too massive, I generally skip. Also, like you mentioned, I don’t have a truck, so these bigger things like hutches and dining tables, I can’t really prioritize

Mindy:
What is something that makes an amazing find.

Kyle:
It has to be, I mean, sometimes it’s the condition. If something is really in good quality condition and I don’t have to do much to it, that’s always the best case scenario. But I mean for me and the journey I like to do with furniture, sometimes the worse the condition, the more fun it is for me personally. But in terms of our resale and kind of getting things out the door standpoint less, but it really is looking for those vintage designers really. I found this Eames table and there’s Erman Miller and those bigger names that really thonet and kind of draw in a collectible crowd or an antique in crowd that that’s what I try to look for when I am going through things, looking for the maker’s marks on the furniture.

Mindy:
Have you ever purchased or gotten for free a piece of furniture? You rehab it, you put it up on all of these sites and nobody wants it?

Kyle:
It is. It actually only happened once. Luckily there is generally a pretty quick turnaround and every once in a while you have to lower the price, like 10 to $20 and then maybe people are interested. The only time was there was this piece that I ended up just keeping for myself. I ended up actually liking it too much, but it did just kind of sit in the, is this still available messages? And then you’d say yes, and then you’d be left on red. So people were interested but not interested enough, which was unfortunate, but I got it for free. So it wasn’t the biggest loss.

Mindy:
And you’ve done this as a series and you share on your series on TikTok that you use this as side money to pay your rent, and I know you’ve publicly shared your rent, but I just love that you’re in California and you’ve got this rent. What is your rent? How much are you paying in rent?

Kyle:
Okay, so the rent that I pay is 1400, but I do share a one bedroom apartment with my partner and we both pay 1400. So together we’re paying 2,800, but I’m paying 1400, which is still a pretty pricey, maybe not necessarily for California. California is very expensive, but it is something that you do have to sell a lot of furniture or put in a lot of work in order to reach that amount.

Mindy:
And how many months have you been able to hit your goal of paying your rent using the money that you’re making through flipping furniture?

Kyle:
So I started that journey last year and I fully committed for one month and I was successful in doing so, and then it kind of went to the back burner a little bit more as just a side hustle, something to be passionate about, but next month I’m doing the same goal again. So it is something that I have to have the mindset of, okay, this month I really do need to commit to spending my weekends, spending my afternoons and nighttimes really committing to spending hours on Facebook marketplace, putting in the work on the projects I do get. So it is something that I have to go into with the mindset that I’m going to do that this month and when I did it, I was successful. So I’m going to do it again next month and see how it goes as well.

Scott:
So I understand have been building on this and taking these skills and actually now improving the house that you rent. Can you tell us a little bit about how that got started?

Kyle:
Yeah, so I live in a building that was built around the 1930s and that means that it has a lot of great details, but sometimes those details have been painted over just through years of switching between tenants and sometimes details have been removed just to make it more commercial or renter friendly. So I have just done the process of really, really small changes, just the hardware that’s been painted over, just taking the paint off of it so you can see that the gold and the brass again, and then adding peel and stick renter friendly tiles in the kitchen to add kind of character back to the space. I did these black and white vintage looking tiles because it felt more true to the space than the bland linoleum that was there.

Scott:
Alright, we’re off to a quick break. When we return, Kyle will walk us through the improvements he’s making to his 1930s apartment.

Mindy:
We are back and we’re talking to Kyle William about how it doesn’t cost as much as you think to make improvements to your home even when you’re just a tenant. Okay. I have to ask from a Landlording perspective, did you get your landlord’s permission before you started making changes to the property?

Kyle:
Yeah, I think it’s really important to have a connection with what you’re doing and asking permission and all the things are so small and they’re things that can be, you can paint over the hardware again, I can peel up the peel and stick tiles. It’s nothing that is really changing the foundation of the apartment and I think that’s what’s important. I’m not kind of spending a lot on repainting the entire place, actually redoing the countertops. So they’re very small changes that aren’t permanent. I think that’s the important thing.

Mindy:
Oh good. Okay, great. Then we can continue this conversation. I really, really like this, but also BiggerPockets is primarily real estate investing and we mainly speak from the landlord’s perspective. And I understand wanting, I watched that TikTok video where you pulled off the door handle and the key hole cover or whatever and you made them look much nicer, half painted looks terrible, but you definitely want to get your landlord’s permission, which you did. So hooray. How did you learn how to do this? I mean, it’s one thing to think, oh, I’m going to scrape off this paint, but it’s another thing to actually get that stuff out and start actually doing it.

Kyle:
Yeah, I think that I’ve just been inspired by other tiktoks and videos that I’ve seen online. I’m in I think a niche on TikTok of people who live in old buildings and who really do value the character in the space that sometimes gets forgotten over the years, but when you do just give a little bit more attention, you can really bring this space back to life. And I like to just imagine what was the original intention with this space and how do I be as true to that as possible.

Scott:
Awesome. And do you feel like you’ve added value and do you think that a place that has the changes you’ve made would rent for more than you’re currently renting? Is this a way to live your best life much more cheaply?

Kyle:
Yeah, I do think that some of the changes that I’ve made would add value. The first thing that people say when they walk into my apartment as, wow, those floors in your kitchen are gorgeous and those are just the peel and stick tiles that I put down and they’re the first thing people are noticing now. And I think that if there was maybe effort put into putting real tiles that could stand the test of time there, that you could probably get more for this unit because it adds so much more character and excitement to walking into the space for the first time.

Mindy:
How do you feel about putting money into a property that you don’t own?

Kyle:
Yeah, I think it is really a balance. Like I said, I’m not doing anything too big, really. I was kind of thinking about it and I don’t think that I’ve spent more than maybe 200, 2 50 on all of the changes I’ve made. It’s not too much of a financial investment. I mean obviously $200 is still money, but it’s something that I’m looking at every day. It’s something I’m seeing every day interacting with. To me, regardless of where I am, it’s important to feel like I’m home and the place that I am.

Mindy:
And I should have guessed that you would’ve done it on the less expensive side.

Kyle:
Yeah, yeah. I’m not spending too much on these updates for sure.

Mindy:
So you have a background in art. For someone who doesn’t but wants to start doing something like this, what are some of the beginner skills that you would recommend they learn how to do?

Kyle:
Yeah, definitely. Like you said, I think my background in art helps, but it was a lot of these skills I just had to learn from doing. And I think the most important thing is starting with an interest in it because I think there are a lot of people who come to me and they’re like, oh, I want to start doing this, but they don’t actually care about furniture. They don’t really care about finding the right things and knowing what to do with them. And so I think it does start from a, are you interested in furniture? Is this something that will be exciting for you to get to find these pieces and to say, I found this lane record cabinet and be excited about it because that takes away a lot of the work from this process. I think it’s more kind of fun and exciting. And in terms of skills, there are just kind of basic skills of stripping paint, sanding furniture that do take some research and some time to be able to figure out all the best ways to do it.

Scott:
Awesome. Is there a cheat code to help you find out more this faster or skip some of that learning curve?

Kyle:
Yeah, I mean TikTok, that’s honestly where I started a lot of my learning. It’s these quick 62nd videos that will give you a rundown of what to do, how to start it. If you type in furniture covered in paint, what to do, you’ll find hundreds or thousands of examples of people doing them in these really quick succession and that was a valuable resource for me for sure.

Scott:
I’d love to hear more of some of your best tips and tricks like how to make things shine, how to strip something and bring it back, bring that back, the bronze or the alert from the metal that’s been painted over, for example. Could you give us maybe a rundown of your favorite ones that you’ve kind discovered for yourself over time?

Kyle:
Yeah, sure. I think the first and most popular thing that one got me into furniture flipping, but also my first viral TikTok video was just using this product citrus strip, which you just put on any painted furniture, leave it for 20 minutes to a few hours and then you just scrape it off and kind of all in one move, you get kind of all the paint and all the varnish and stain even off if you do a few more layers. And that was kind of the best way to do things because I didn’t have a sander at the time. I didn’t probably couldn’t be sanding things. I lived in an apartment building when I started that, and so that’s kind of maybe for the quieter furniture flippers and things like using, I try to use more natural products. Citrus strip has less kind of harsh chemicals just because they can be kind of dangerous to work with, especially inside. I try to never use those types of things inside. And another thing is beeswax. That’s another kind of natural furniture polisher. So if it doesn’t need kind of all the stripping and all of that, if I just want to polish it, I’ll use something like that just to kind of buff a nice shine into it. So those are kind of the more natural things I tend to try to use just because I don’t want to be putting tons of chemicals and toxins into the atmosphere around me if I don’t have to.

Scott:
Awesome. What about something for metal? How would you remove paint from a furniture with metal pieces?

Kyle:
Yeah, one thing I love about TikTok is that I learned from the people in the comments a lot. I did learn that using a crockpot, an old crockpot that I picked up at Goodwill for like $10, you just put all the metal that’s been painted or rusted, you add some vinegar, some baking soda, not together but separately, and you cook it just on a low heat for a few hours and the rust will slide right off. The paint will slide right off. So that was such an interesting hack to utilize that I’ve been using a lot recently.

Mindy:
If you are putting vinegar in a crockpot stick that crockpot outside or in the garage, that is not going to be a pleasant aroma.

Kyle:
No. Yeah, it’s definitely, I think my windows were open and I left that space for a few hours and came back, but it was amazing to see how easy it was to work with after it had soaked in that low level heat for a few hours.

Mindy:
I once cleaned my coffee pot with vinegar. I was like, oh, that’s warm vinegar. That is a horrible smell. I had to open up every window. It was awful, but that’s a great tip. I didn’t know that and I’ve got some rusty stuff at my house, so I’m going to try that. Just tip, if you’re going to do this and you decide that you’re not going to do it anymore, just throw the crockpot away. Don’t donate it back to the goodwill.

Kyle:
No. Yeah, I wrote in big letters do not ever use for food on the side of it and definitely not going to be donating it or anything. And yeah, that reminded me. Vinegar is in general great with wood as well. A lot of these older pieces will stink. They’ll have some weird smells just from use and age and wear and tear and vinegar on old wood can do a lot of wonders with the smell sometimes with stains as well. So that’s again, kind of maybe not the best smelling, but it’s a chemical free way to kind of fix things up in a way that’s super accessible to bottle of vinegar’s $2 at Costco.

Scott:
I just hear this, I’m like, because my mind always turns to real estate obsessed with real estate and can’t stop talking about it. I’m like, you’re going to have a field day, one day with one of these 18, late 18 hundreds builds homes that haven’t been touched in a hundred years. Really with the updates and stuff, you’re just going to bring it completely back to life one of these years. I’d be excited to see that if you ever get into that, that ever happens. There’s all these weird things with the foundations and the radiator and all this stuff that I just think you’re going to be able to bring some magic in life too if you ever get into

Kyle:
It. That is the dream at one point, to find a home that just really does need that love and attention to detail, and there are a lot of different ways to kind of work with those homes. Sometimes they do just need a gut job, but if you can find one where you can save as much of the original history as possible, what’s exciting to me.

Scott:
Well, one last question. I think it’s pretty important here. What do you do for a day job when you’re not flipping furniture and finding all these tips and tricks on TikTok?

Kyle:
So I work in film and tv, I do kind of related, I work in production design for just film TV commercials, which is putting together the scene, the imagery that can be decorating a blank space, making it look like something or just bringing in character or something specific for the lookbook or the prompt to make it match what the directors or the producers are going for.

Mindy:
That kind of sounds like a match made in heaven for you and your skills.

Kyle:
Yeah, they really do go together in a way that informs one another, makes me excited about things. I like to work on period piece films. I have done those before and working. I’ve worked in old historic homes in Pasadena and really gotten to live the fantasy of the 1960s diner, the 18 hundreds mansion. So living in those things also, like you said, feeds into the appreciation for these furniture from different eras.

Mindy:
You need to connect with somebody who’s already doing flipping in your area and help them make their house beautiful because there’s lots of people who can do the construction but have no idea how to make it pretty.

Kyle:
Yeah, that again, a dream, something that I’m thinking about committing full-time to. I was thinking timeline wise start of next year really diving into certain aspects of that and seeing what I can do with it.

Scott:
Kyle, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been really fascinating. It’s really inspiring to see this incredible side hustle you’ve built here and you can see how the skills that you’re developing are just going to be so compounding valuable to you for the rest of your life, both in if you ever want to make money in these things, which you already are and scaling that and in just making your environment more wonderful for you to be in. It’s just value add to the world. You’re just taking stuff that people don’t want and then turning it into items that are really valuable that people are going to use and cherish. So thank you for doing that. Where can people find out more about you and follow your journey?

Kyle:
Yeah, thank you again for having me as well. You can follow me. My at is the same at everything. It’s Kyle, William Art on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and I try to keep pretty consistent with posting and updating on there and like I said, trying to teach people skills and really stressing, like you mentioned, kind of sustainability of using these things that nobody wants and making them into things that people will cherish.

Mindy:
Awesome. I am going to go follow you on Instagram and TikTok right now. Thank you so much for your time, Kyle, and we will talk to you soon.

Kyle:
Yeah, thank you so much. I hope you both have a great rest of your day.

Scott:
Alright, that was Kyle, William, Mindy, what’d you think,

Mindy:
Scott? I love this episode. I love what he’s doing with taking these formerly beautiful, now a little tarnished furniture pieces and making them beautiful once again. And something we didn’t cover in this episode is that he’s actually keeping things out of the landfill. It breaks my heart to see so much stuff, go to the dump, go to the garbage, and instead of doing that, people are putting it on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace and then he’s coming in, taking it, making it beautiful and selling it to somebody who may not have looked at it twice when it was in its former condition. So not only is he making things beautiful and making money, he’s also helping the environment by keeping things out of the landfill. So I love it even more, but I had a great time with this show, Scott, what did you think of the episode?

Scott:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. Again, I said it’s a service to society to take these items that would otherwise get thrown away and repurpose them. So they’re going to be loved and cherished by people. It’s a profit center for him and it’s a training ground for skills will compound in value throughout his life. Along this, it’s also a lifetime pursuit. This is not something that will be going away in the next 10 years or whatever. You can imagine Kyle’s version of future financial independence and what that would look like and how much even more accelerated that would do. So it was just really inspiring and I think that anybody can learn what he’s doing and follow in his footsteps if they want to have the nice things in life, have a really great side hustle and develop skills that will be really helpful to a real estate investor, for example.

Mindy:
Yeah, go check out his sights. They are absolutely gorgeous. We just barely touched the surface today, Kyle William Art at all the places that he mentioned. Alright, Scott, you ready? Get out of here.

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast. He of course is the Scott Trench and I am Mindy Jensen saying with Love Dov.

Scott:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpockets money.

Mindy:
BiggerPockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kaylin Bennett, editing by Exodus Media Copywriting by Nate Weinraub. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.