Workshop

Thrifting

I have not spent more than $15 on a piece of clothing since about 2023 (apart from a $60 leather jacket I bought because I really wanted a leather jacket). My whole closet is made up of thrifted clothes with the occasional gift or two, but the thrifted pieces take over.

Over the past couple of years, I have developed a love for finding old, unwanted things and giving them a new life and purpose.

Rescue

Sifting through hundreds of pieces on rack after rack might feel tiring and take forever. Walking up and down the aisles aimlessly looking for something seems grueling, but once I find a piece I like, I get pure joy.

I love finding a piece I know people would’ve paid ten times as much for, and getting it for just a few bucks. Those few bucks can last me years. I still wear certain pants I got years ago.

Renew

I get the same joy from refurbishing and fixing broken or messed up things. Whether it’s removing a pen stain from a nice dress shirt I found, sanding old stains off a vintage dresser, or repainting an old mirror to fit a modern room, the work puts me in a state of peace, and I love seeing the final product. Something made from an item that was just about forgotten.

When I find a piece I like, I have a mission to bring it back to its perfect state. I’ve refurbished multiple old pieces of furniture, sewn buttons and glued fabric back onto plenty of clothes, and turned trash into art.

Two pieces, start to finish.

Low cabinet

I kept the original grain on the top and painted everything else.

A worn orange-brown cabinet with a badly damaged top, sitting in a garage — Before

The same cabinet stripped to its carcass outdoors, with a new top being fitted — During

The finished cabinet painted white with a dark walnut top — After

The finished low cabinet seen from the side — From the side

A close view of the cabinet’s new walnut top — The new top

Side cabinet

I painted the inside drawers to match the top, painted the hardware too.

The same cabinet in white with a stained wood top and black hardware — After

The finished side cabinet seen from the side — From the side

A close view of the side cabinet’s stained top — The new top

Resell

With all that came my love for reselling. I go out on the weekend to find cool pieces, take good care of them, take good pics, and post them the same day, just for a chance that someone finds it and falls in love with it themselves. I get to bring a small selection of clothes to the rest of the country, so people can find things online they wouldn’t have found in person.

Same with furniture. I refurbish a piece to fit into someone’s home exactly how they want it, and bring function back to a piece of craftsmanship that was standing by the dumpster.

Depop ↗

Where the hands came from

In high school I dual-enrolled in manufacturing engineering at De Anza. I learned CAD and SolidWorks, 3D printing across FDM, VAT and powder-bed fusion, CNC machining, and manual metalwork, designing parts and then actually making them.

That’s probably why fixing things comes naturally to me. Once you’ve machined a part to a tolerance, a wobbly chair stops looking broken and starts looking like a loose joint you can fix.

Which is why I built

Resell Assistant

Pricing by feel works until you’re holding a whole weekend’s haul at once.

So I built an MCP server I can ask, in plain language, what something is worth. It also keeps my inventory and finances in Google Sheets up to date on its own, so I’m not updating a spreadsheet at midnight.