Yo! Looking good there, you obviously had breakfast.

Do you know what I did? I discovered that beauty may be skin deep, but it can make you money!

First of all, I’m not a pro refinisher of anything, but I do believe in improving everything I touch, even if it’s just to polish it up.

BUT, and it’s a huge ‘but’, I never felt that the time investment for the money I’d make on a piece was worth it.

And then I had a profitable learning experience.

Let’s be honest – I’m a young guy in a hurry with no time to fuss, unless there’s a giant profit at the end of it.

For example, if it takes me 8 hours to refinish a piece and only make around $100 bucks, I’d think twice about that just because I know that I can make that in a quarter of the time with another deal. Now, if the profit was more like $500, I’d be in my overalls faster than you can say Martha Stewart. (Please don’t say it.)

So, back to my learning.

I was thinking about how I could make more money with the least effort in my various flipping niches and I thought about furniture.

What would be the easiest way to build in more profit? Paint it.

Now, I’m not talking the whole sanding, priming enchilada; I’m not that crafty. Just straight up wiping down a furniture piece with a wet rag and then painting it! But that’s too boring for me, so I usually have an audiobook playing in the background while I’m doing it (always learning!). That evens out the time investment, but what about the profit?

I recently bought an old piano bench/stool for $9, cleaned it up and painted it black. 2 hours work, already had the paint, and then resold it for $50:

After that — I started to get more into it and came across a sofa table for $10 bucks I was going to transform. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take a “before” pic of it (it had a freakin’ white base with a GREEN countertop…perhaps too ugly to post lol). Anyway — here are some progress pics:

And finally — completed and posted with a killer ad for $150:

Ready to sell.

Now I don’t know about you, but it looks pretty decent to me and it was an eyesore before. I could have gone all hardcore on it and sanded it, taking forever and doing a million different steps… but… why not just freakin’ paint the damn thing?! That’s $140 profit from a wipe down and lick of paint!

Keep thinking about how, with minimal investments of time and effort, you can also up your profits and still keep your pipelines moving.