Lauren Hull was enjoying Spring Break in her second year of teaching Kindergarten at LeMay Elementary School in Bellevue when the Covid lockdown happened. Like most people stuck in their homes, she was looking for things to occupy her time and offered to renovate her parent’s kitchen. As she was finishing up, Hull noticed that the kitchen table wasn’t fitting in with the new look. “It didn’t match the vibe so I watched some YouTube videos and figured out how I was going to paint it,” Hull shared. “I sanded it down, painted it, touched it up, and made it nice….and I realized how much I loved the process…. the creativity involved and the before and after transformation.”
Still in lockdown, Hull decided to try her hand at buying a used piece of furniture cheap, renovating it, and then reselling it for a profit. This process is commonly known as flipping, made popular over the years by shows on channels like the DIY Network and HGTV. “I bought a small table from Goodwill for $10 and used the leftover paint and supplies from the table at my parent’s house, fixed it up and then sold it on Facebook Marketplace for $100.”
Hull was hooked. She began to recycle her profits and purchase more pieces to flip and invest in more products like tools, paint, and stain. Along the way, she started to film parts of her process and make videos that she shared on her personal Instagram account. Eventually, Hull decided to start her own YouTube channel with her partner and professional videographer Neiman Sneed. “I was still teaching and it was over the long Thanksgiving break in 2020 that I asked Neiman if he wanted to start a YouTube Channel,” Hull said. “He’s a videographer and photographer. He does weddings and events like that. So we married our two talents and posted our first YouTube video that same day.”
April 2021 was a pivotal time in Hull’s life. Each year around this time, teachers are asked about their intent to return to teaching for the upcoming school year. It helps districts get a better idea of how many new teachers they will have to hire. Hull was contemplating leaving teaching and making furniture flipping her full-time job and source of income. She described how she was basically working two full-time jobs at that point, and some change needed to happen. After a lot of back and forth, she made the decision to flip furniture full-time and leave the classroom behind.
After a month on YouTube, some of the videos that Hull was posting started to get more views. She began to share more of her personal life, including her student loan debt which, at the time, was $25,400. She set a public goal to flip furniture to pay off her debt, thinking that maybe it might take her a year or so. It ended up not taking her nearly that long, as she had the whole amount paid off within four months.
While Hull’s ‘Furniture Flipping Teacher’ pages had a large online following on Instagram and Facebook – they like to focus on their YouTube channel more since that is where the social media journey started for them. “On our YouTube channel, we had 1,000 subscribers after a month – which is not too common for most YouTube channels. By the end of the first year, we had 100,000 subscribers. Since then, it’s been very steady with ebbs and flows like everything.”
They currently have over 251,000 channel subscribers, with more added every day from across the world. Their Instagram and Facebook accounts each also have around 250,000 followers.
Her most viewed video is titled How to PAINT Your Kitchen Cabinets the EASY Way. It currently has over 1.7 million views on YouTube. Many of her other videos have between 100,000 and 700,000 views. What made the kitchen cabinet video stand out? “I think that video has got so many views because people painting kitchen cabinets is pretty common and a way to update your house without spending a lot of money or buying new ones,” Hull explained. “The video has been very highly searched on Google. We can tell the keywords people are searching that leads them to our videos. The video is two years old and still gets the most views every single month.”
Hull gets most of her furniture from Facebook Marketplace, thrift sales, and occasionally estate sales. She credits her Dad with a lot of the basic knowledge that got her started. “Growing up, I learned from my Dad. He would fix things around the house and learn to fix things on his own. If the faucet needs fixing, you fix it. You don’t call someone… unless it’s a much bigger project.”
They have a soft opening planned for this Saturday, November 4th, from 3-7pm – and it promises a big announcement. The store has a name, but they haven’t announced it yet. Anticipation among their followers has grown, with many taking guesses and offering suggestions for what the store name should be. One thing for certain is that it will not be called Furniture Flipping Teacher.
At 3:15 on Saturday, Hull and Sneed will pull back the curtain to present their store name to the public for the first time. The moment will be recorded, of course, and shared with their followers and everyone in attendance. After that, visitors will be able to tour the 4,000 square foot space and see what they have to offer and items that are for sale. Food will be on hand and Hull said to come hungry.
As far as regular hours of operation, they don’t have them solidified just yet. To start the will be open from Tuesday through Sunday and closed on Mondays. The plan is to see what days and times are busiest and slowest over the first few weeks to determine what their hours of operation will be. Tentively they are thinking they will be open from 10am-6pm.
When talking about their new space, both Hull and Sneed are excited. “We want this to be a space of creativity, inspiration, and empowerment. A place of positivity. When you walk in here we want people to feel like they can get something done,” said Sneed.
Hull added, “This is phase one. As it grows, we want it to be a one-stop shop for anyone who wants to do flips or different projects, and we will have the furniture, the paint, the hardware, and different decor to stage flips with. “
The soon-to-be-named store is located at 2219 Thurston Circle, right off of Fort Crook Road, a few blocks north of Cornhusker Road. It is on the left side of the same building that Uptown Bakery was in for years.
Ever the teacher, Hull has created a course that is available for purchase through their website FurnitureFlippingTeacher.com. It greatly expands on the bits of information she posts online in her videos. The two and a half hour course is called ‘Furniture Flipping to Profits for Beginners’ and Hull goes over everything a person would need to complete a flip, from finding the furniture to selling the furniture.
If you’d like to learn more about furniture flipping, there are many ways to follow along with Hull’s adventure.
- Subscribe to Hull’s YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/@FurnitureFlippingTeacher
- Follow Hull on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/furnitureflippingteacher
- Follow Hull on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/furnitureflippingteacher
Pictures taken and provided by Neiman Sneed
