I just like to give him a hard time. Honestly, he's the muscles behind the operation. I do most of the selling. We make a great team!

My poor husband. I've proved him wrong once again. Several weeks ago I went to a storage auction that was literally right across the highway from our house. I should have bought every unit there but it was 15 degrees outside and I was sick. My husband was at work so he wasn't there to push me on. There were 6 units up for auction. I watched two slip through my fingers that were full of neat old furniture. But my heart just wasn't in it. I was really under the weather and everything looked like work. Finally we came to a unit that everyone shuddered at when they opened the door. Trash everywhere, looked like it had been ransacked! This is my favorite type of unit and my husband wasn't there to tell me no. Amazingly someone decided to bid against me but I still won it for $50. After I paid up and my husband came to the rescue to help me load it, I was able to go through my new treasure trove. First words out of my husbands mouth, "Why did you by this? This looks like junk!" And he was right. Papers everywhere and remnants of frequent hospital visits. Hundreds of pill bottles with meds still in them but big surprise here, all the narcotic bottles were empty. There was broken glass and a filthy old stove. And broken furniture. My husband sees this unit as a total loss. My hard work has turned $50 into $274.64 to date and I still have stuff to sell. I dug through boxes and found silver spoons and lots of costume jewelry. I found old anchor hocking casserole dishes in a few boxes. The broken furniture and dresser drawers were the first thing I sold. Scrap from the unit covered our one run to the dump and then some. So why is this my favorite type of unit? Nothing heavy to lift (minus the stove that my husband wrestled onto the truck) and I know I can turn trash into gold. It's about maximizing every dollar. I'll probably make another $100 before I run out of smalls from this unit. It's a small profit but that's ok. It's nice to prove my husband wrong from time to time. 

I repurpose everything I can. Or I sell 'as-is' and advertise that it can be used for Pinterest projects. When I advertise like that I sell quick. And I've made some contacts who I can call and they'll take all the junk furniture I can find. Most popular stuff is dresser drawers from a broken dresser, old windows in wood frames, wooden boxes and trunks in any condition or size, old wood, and old suitcases. My husband thinks it's amazing that people pay us for this stuff that he would just haul off to the dump.

One of my favorite repurposing tricks is taking chairs ( you know the ones, the ugly wood chairs that every middle class family had in the 80s and 90s). You usually find one in every unit. Maybe you get lucky with a pair. But it's never a whole set. I take each chair and spray paint with some bold color. Like red, pink, yellow, blue etc... I can then sell them for $25 each on the Facebook garage sale site and they are sold within hours.

My town, the neighboring towns, and neighboring counties all have a Facebook garage sale page. You request to become a member. Then just post pictures if what you have for sale. Stuff sells quick! I sold two broken dresser drawers and a broken chair to someone who is really big into Pinterest and upcycles furniture. She wants all the broken cr*p furniture that I can find. I don't sell my high end stuff on there, I.e expensive antique and specialty items I can get more money for on eBay. My husband and I specialize in midcentury lighting and furniture. Around here people think that stuff is junk.