Our Story

Sitting in my mom's van at the dump, I watched someone drag a new-ish black sofa out of their truck, then over the edge of the nearest dumpster. I felt disgusted by the waste, such a new looking item destined to rot for the next few thousand years.

Flash forward a few years, I'm a second year university student who is trying to find a way to make money on the side.

During one of many YouTube doom scrolling sessions, I came across a video about a side hustle called couch flipping. I watched it, and thought pretty much nothing of it.

The day after, I'm on my way in my parents' minivan to pick up a free couch. I bring it home to the garage, clean it, picture and post for $100. It sells within 24 hours. I became hooked, and over the next 4 months, I poured every hour of every day into the business, dropping out of university so I could devote myself to finding, buying, cleaning, picturing, showing, and delivering sofas. 

After about 4 months, I realize I'm working myself into the ground, and need a way to evolve the business. Each hour of my time needed to increase in value, because I had no time to spend with friends, family, or on my mountain bike. The only path forward I could see was to make an official business, with a storefront, that sells what customers seemed to really want: clean, smell free, rip free, tear free, dirt free, modern looking sofas that cost less than new, and could be quickly delivered to their home. 

I reached out to multiple real estate agents about leasing “cheap” commercial properties. I got questions like “do you have a website” and “do you have 2 years of business history” and “are you able to put down multiple months worth of rent.” My answer to all of these was: no. I sell used sofas out of a storage locker on Facebook marketplace, definitely do not have a website, and definitely do not have enough capital to put down multiple months worth of rent.

One day, I got a message from a real estate agent asking if I would like to see his cheapest listing. He asks no qualifying questions, and agrees to show me a listing of his. After checking it out, then some email negotiation with the landlord, I've signed my first commercial lease, just days before my 21st birthday.

Building out the business in the first 6 months was tough, I was barely managing to scrape by with enough money for food and rent. Working almost every hour of every day, I spent many nights sleeping at the shop, eating lots of pre-made protein oatmeal: vanilla protein powder in oatmeal topped with either cheddar cheese and apples, or peanut butter and honey. At this time, every hour and dollar of mine counted, but there was one thing that was continually setting me back: driving to, buying, and trying to repair sofas that looked nice, but had irreparable issues.

On many occasions I would pick up a sofa, bring it back to clean, and find the frame or springs to be broken. I would disassemble the sofa to see if I could make a repair happen, and find similar issues every time: 1. Particle board that was stapled together, disintegrating, with no way of reinforcing it. 2. Springs integrated with the foam, which would often break, shift out of place and poke through the surface of the seating fabric, leaving the seat with a very uncomfortable spot at best, and a real hazard at worst. Due to the foam and springs being integrated with each other, and no solid wood to reattach broken springs to, there was often no solid way to make repairs to these sofas. The problem was, if one of these sofas was still in good shape, it would sell quickly for a profit. People wanted modern looking sofas for cheap. However, too often it would turn into a total loss of time, money, and the extra expense of the dumping fee, setting me further back from paying rent.

I had to learn how to avoid these irreparable sofas, and fast. Through trial and error, I found how to learn which sofas were not liabilities by asking sellers questions such as: are the seat cushions removable? Do they have two sides? The seat cushions being removable and having two upholstered sides I found was the leading indicator of a sofa being a safe buy. My key to surviving became taking in well worn but quality sofas with timeless styles, and refurbishing them. I developed a love for washable seat cushion covers, washable back cushion covers, hardwood frames, and synthetic fabrics that allowed stains to be easily cleaned out of them. 

Today, the inventory we sell is still based on the guidelines developed at the beginning of the business. There is now an exception to the rule of us only bringing in seating with removable and reversible seat cushions. We’ve found high-end, well-recognized brands will use high-quality enough materials to make a seat with fixed seat cushion covers hold up well. If pieces like this ever have issues, the frame will at least still be solid enough to make repairs with.

While the original motivation for our selectiveness was out of self interest, there is now an important implication here for our customers: they choose from designs we expertly vet to be high quality. The byproducts of high quality pre-owned furniture* are: exceptional comfort per dollar, great cost per use ratio, minimal comparative carbon footprint, and reduced landfill waste. In the big picture, this means less furniture with the same fate of that sofa I saw dumped all those years ago.

Join us and choose to re-home, don’t throw out.

Elwyn Thom

Owner

*Compared to inexpensive new furniture