In 2020, Tyler and Lindsey Dobson started upcycling furniture they found on the street to furnish their home in St. Petersburg, Florida. But their hobby would soon turn into a lucrative side hustle and eventually transform their lives as they leveled up to flipping entire homes.
“As we accumulated more and more [furniture], we didn’t have space in our house,” Tyler tells CNBC Make It. “So we decided that we could make a run at doing this for a nice side hustle, and it just kind of rolled from there.”
At first, the couple flipped about one to two pieces of furniture a week, earning about $500 a month in profit by taking discarded items like dressers and chairs and refinishing them. They say that grew to around $1,000 a month as they dedicated more time to upcycling.
The Dobsons learned their renovation and repair skills from YouTube videos and trial and error.
Justin Cardoza | CNBC Make It
They also started pulling in extra money from brand deals and social media payouts as they grew a following sharing videos of their furniture flips — and later, home renovations — on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
Flipping homes was a “natural progression,” Lindsey says. In addition to filling it with upcycled furniture, the couple began making renovations and additions to their own home. When they moved in 2021, they were able to sell it for $352,500 — more than double what Tyler had paid for it in 2018.
‘More flexibility, creativity and freedom’
The Dobsons bought and moved into another St. Petersburg home in 2021, selling it in 2025 after completing another live-in renovation. The two homes brought in a combined profit of $559,702.
Between 2020 and 2024, they renovated and sold four other Florida homes for a total profit of $577,000, minus capital gains taxes they paid on the sales. In total, they’ve earned over $1.1 million from flipping homes since 2020, before taxes.
“We’re crazy,” Lindsey says. “Every time we finish a house, especially one we live in, I don’t know what’s wrong with us … once there’s no projects left, we just get the itch to do it again.”
It’s worked out so far. Lindsey left her marketing job in July 2021 and Tyler followed soon after, leaving his finance job in 2022. They hadn’t fully replaced their annual 9-to-5 incomes yet, but they felt confident taking the “leap of faith” to rely on their social media income and the profits they would bring in from flipping homes, Lindsey says.
Still, the Dobsons say they don’t consider themselves full-time house flippers. For them, it’s more of a lifestyle choice; while they do renovate homes and sell them for a profit, they typically live in the homes they’re working on.
Tyler and Lindsay Dobson bought their Springfield, Missouri home in March 2025.
Justin Cardoza | CNBC Make It
This strategy also allows them to keep more of what they earn because married taxpayers can exclude up to $500,000 in capital gains when they sell their primary residence, if they meet certain eligibility rules. That includes living in the home for at least two of the five years prior to the sale date and not taking the exclusion within the prior two years before a sale.
“Renovating homes has simply become a way to design a life with more flexibility, creativity and freedom from conventional full-time jobs,” Lindsey says.
They aren’t interested in scaling up into a full-fledged flipping business. While the flips they don’t live in have helped support their vision for a lifestyle free from 9-to-5 work, the homes the Dobsons live in while renovating are their main focus.
“Fixing them up, living in them, furnishing them with all of our free and secondhand pieces and then eventually moving on have been our most financially rewarding, as well as personally meaningful, projects,” Lindsey says.
The combined income from their home sales and social media lets the Dobsons live comfortably and mortgage-free. They bought their current residence, a 1930s craftsman-style home in Springfield, Missouri, in March 2025. While they may sell it in the future, they’re not in a rush. They’re taking their time with renovations and expect to take a few years to fully complete their vision.
The flipping lifestyle
The Dobsons earn anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to $8,000 a month from social media, they say. It varies based on how well their videos perform and whether they have a brand deal.
“We primarily are just working on our own home and renovating it and filming our projects on social media to fund it,” Lindsey says. “We’re luckily able to still live on all of our reserves from the proceeds of our [previous] home sale.”
The Dobsons welcomed their daughter in October 2024.
Justin Cardoza | CNBC Make It
The couple still owns a home in Florida they rent out for $2,500 a month, and they continue to search for other investment properties. In October 2025, they bought another home in Springfield, which they plan to renovate and sell for a profit.
The couple’s income totaled around $95,000 in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. That includes earnings from their social media content, brand deals and profits from a home sale.
The Dobsons are able to continue living and supporting their flipping lifestyle without full-time jobs in part because they keep their expenses fairly low.
They bought their current residence and recent investment property in cash, so they don’t have monthly mortgage payments. And moving to Missouri has nearly halved their property taxes and home insurance costs, Lindsey says, so they are able to invest more of their money back into their projects.
“We’re both very frugal, so I think any way we can try to stick to a budget, we do that,” she says. “We definitely do our due diligence before purchasing a property and make sure that it’s going to be a safe investment for our family.”
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