'Furniture-flipping' is a hot new TikTok trend where people show off quick restorations for sale. Check out these before-and-after photos from popular creators.

Samantha DelouyaAug 7, 2022, 17:55 IST

Jasmine Bautista poses with a piece of furniture before restoring it.Jasmine Bautista

Furniture restoration is exploding in popularity on TikTok.
The hashtag "#furnitureflip" has 4.6 billion total views and has grown by 23% compared to last year, according to TikTok.

McKay Floyd worked as a teacher in Atlanta until she quit last summer to pursue furniture restoration, or "furniture flipping" as it's known on TikTok, full time.

Floyd began furniture flipping as a hobby to decorate her house, but by the end of last summer, she was making more money from selling furniture than she was from teaching.

"I just randomly started filming stuff and putting it on TikTok, and then it all just came from there," she said.

Floyd now runs @designsbymckay on TikTok, where she posts videos of her flips, which usually involve sanding down wooden furniture and repainting or staining it. Her account, which is less than two years old, has more than 110,000 followers.

Furniture restoration was once thought to be a practice reserved for stuffy antique shops and artisans, but Floyd is just one of the furniture flipper accounts that have exploded in popularity on TikTok.

The hashtag "#furnitureflip" has 4.6 billion total views on TikTok and has grown by 23% compared to last year, according to the company.

"Our community is passionate about sustainability and making environmentally conscious purchase decisions; as a result, sustainable, thrifted, and vintage content thrives on our platform," TikTok told Insider.

Jasmine Bautista, who runs the account @prettylittleflips with more than 300,000 followers, seems to agree with TikTok's assessment of the furniture flip community.

"A lot of these pieces I find on the side of the road or online given out for free. A lot of the time, these furniture pieces are going to the trash, and where does the trash end up? The landfill," she said. "We already are in such a world where there's so much trash we don't need any more of it."

Grace Elletson, who runs @graceful_designs_diy on TikTok, says that people are "catching onto the benefits" of buying secondhand furniture over store-bought.

"Lots of mass-produced stuff is cheaply made, kind of trendy in design, so there's nothing really classic about it. It's going to go out of style in a year or two, and it falls apart," she said. Elletson's account has nearly 600,000 followers on TikTok.

Bautista, Elletson, and Floyd shared some of the furniture flips they are most proud of. Here are pictures before and after their transformations.

Jasmine Bautista of @prettylittleflips poses with an old dresser before its makeover.

BeforeJasmine Bautista

That same dresser after her work.

AfterJasmine Bautista

Bautista said she picks furniture based on whether she's "able to see the potential." Here she poses with a broken table.

BeforeJasmine Bautista

"I'm giving it a new life, I'm giving it a new home," Bautista said about the furniture she restores.

AfterJasmine Bautista

Bautista said she was always interested in creating things with her own hands and used to sell decorated cakes before she got into furniture flipping.

BeforeJasmine Bautista

"After I flipped my first one, that was it. I ended up getting hooked," she said.

AfterJasmine Bautista

Grace Elletson of @graceful_designs_diy said she started refinishing furniture on the porch of her "mini apartment" and that "it kind of just blossomed into this obsession that I had."

BeforeGrace Elletson

Grace Elletson of @graceful_designs_diy said she started refinishing furniture on the porch of her "mini apartment" and that "it kind of just blossomed into this obsession that I had."

Elletson now works out of a studio she rents in a milking barn just outside of Burlington, Vermont.

AfterGrace Elletson

"I think my business is definitely half content creation, half furniture refinishing," Elletson said.

BeforeGrace Elletson

"There's so much that ends up going to the garbage I feel like there's a mad dash. I want to do it all, but of course, I can't," she said.

AfterGrace Elletson

Elletson said she tries to teach her followers how to refinish furniture themselves, "so all this amazing stuff isn't getting trashed."

BeforeGrace Elletson

"You're going to make more unique and beautiful homes if you're able to buy secondhand," Elletson said. "If you're able to put that sweat into it because it does take effort."

AfterGrace Elletson

"You're going to make more unique and beautiful homes if you're able to buy secondhand," Elletson said. "If you're able to put that sweat into it because it does take effort."

McKay Floyd of @designsbymckay said she used to flip furniture for fun. She found this set of drawers at Goodwill.

BeforeMcKay Floyd

Floyd said she mostly learned how to restore furniture by watching YouTube tutorials and from her dad.

AfterMcKay Floyd

Here is a superman-themed dresser Floyd worked on recently.

BeforeMcKay Floyd

She says it takes her between 2 and 5 days to fix up a piece, and she works on several at a time.

AfterMcKay Floyd

Floyd said that posting on social media has helped her business take off. "TikTok definitely helps me sell the furniture," she said. "More now because I have more followers."

BeforeMcKay Floyd

Floyd said that posting on social media has helped her business take off. "TikTok definitely helps me sell the furniture," she said. "More now because I have more followers."

Floyd says she hopes her page will show people that "you don't necessarily always have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on new furniture. There are ways that you can flip it into something you like, and that looks super expensive."

AfterMcKay Floyd

Floyd says she hopes her page will show people that "you don't necessarily always have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on new furniture. There are ways that you can flip it into something you like, and that looks super expensive."

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'Furniture-flipping' is a hot new TikTok trend where people show off quick restorations for sale. Check out these before-and-after photos from popular creators.

Jasmine Bautista of @prettylittleflips poses with an old dresser before its makeover.

That same dresser after her work.

Bautista said she picks furniture based on whether she's "able to see the potential." Here she poses with a broken table.

"I'm giving it a new life, I'm giving it a new home," Bautista said about the furniture she restores.

Bautista said she was always interested in creating things with her own hands and used to sell decorated cakes before she got into furniture flipping.

"After I flipped my first one, that was it. I ended up getting hooked," she said.

Grace Elletson of @graceful_designs_diy said she started refinishing furniture on the porch of her "mini apartment" and that "it kind of just blossomed into this obsession that I had."

Elletson now works out of a studio she rents in a milking barn just outside of Burlington, Vermont.

"I think my business is definitely half content creation, half furniture refinishing," Elletson said.

"There's so much that ends up going to the garbage I feel like there's a mad dash. I want to do it all, but of course, I can't," she said.

Elletson said she tries to teach her followers how to refinish furniture themselves, "so all this amazing stuff isn't getting trashed."

"You're going to make more unique and beautiful homes if you're able to buy secondhand," Elletson said. "If you're able to put that sweat into it because it does take effort."

McKay Floyd of @designsbymckay said she used to flip furniture for fun. She found this set of drawers at Goodwill.

Floyd said she mostly learned how to restore furniture by watching YouTube tutorials and from her dad.

Here is a superman-themed dresser Floyd worked on recently.

She says it takes her between 2 and 5 days to fix up a piece, and she works on several at a time.

Floyd said that posting on social media has helped her business take off. "TikTok definitely helps me sell the furniture," she said. "More now because I have more followers."

Floyd says she hopes her page will show people that "you don't necessarily always have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on new furniture. There are ways that you can flip it into something you like, and that looks super expensive."