Furniture refinisher

On a farm in Dunkirk in a large barn, one may find Courtney Finnerty working on one of her pastimes.

Finnerty, a 2015 Jay County High School graduate, has turned the past-time — refinishing furniture — into a side business. 

“I just had an old kitchen table in my house and I started seeing stuff on the internet about people redoing their furniture,” said Finnerty, who also works as a flight attendant. “And I thought it would be cool to try it and I really like doing arts and crafts and stuff like that, so I just looked into it more and started doing it.”

She said she started doing the business side of it because she realized she could make money off of it when people would come to her house and ask her where she got her furniture that she refurbished.

She was able to buy a table in the $10 range, refurbish it and make several hundred dollars on the finished product.

She said that she doesn’t keep track of how long it takes her to complete projects but estimated that it typically takes about three hours to refurbish chairs and small tables. 

She uses products from Annie Sloan, a company that specializes in furniture paint, saying “you get what you pay for.” Her process involved lightly sanding pieces, painting them, sanding again and finishing with a wax that creates an antique look.

In addition to her work as a flight attendant and her side business working on furniture, Finnerty has a son who is almost 5 months old. She said she loves flying but it can be hard to get her refurbishing done at times after having her first child.

“When he isn’t here and someone else has him it’s not too bad,” Finnerty said. “but when he is here and I have to keep him calm it gets difficult but I’m figuring it out.” 

And her refurbishing projects serve as a getaway of sorts.

“It gets me out of my everyday routine,” added Finnerty. “It’s like a stress reliever.”   

Amanda Hathaway, one of Finnerty’s customers, said she found her using Facebook when she was looking for furniture while she was in the process of buying a new house. She said Finnerty refurbished her tables and chairs, as well as her vanity set, a dresser and her headboard.

“She made my headboard, vanity and dresser match perfectly. So I got  a whole bedroom suite,” Hathaway said, adding that she was impressed with the results. “She refurbishes furniture that is not very attractive and makes it super trendy,” Hathaway said.

Finnerty hopes to one day open up a home decor store and continue to refurbish furniture.