Teaching math is her day job, but in her free time Crystal Smith gets her hands dirty fixing up and reselling old furniture. Collecting abandoned treasures from around the area, she gives them a little love, a little paint here and there, then resells them via her company Rustic Tids and Bits.

“It started off that I just enjoyed working on furniture and making it look nice again,” Smith said. “Then we started a family business where we actually repaint the furniture.”

The origins of Rustic Tids and Bits began with a simple thought.

“We started off doing it for ourselves and then our friends and family, and now we are actually making a full business out of it,” Smith said. “We go to vintage trade shows, we have a booth in downtown McKinney where we sell our products, and we have a lot of fun doing it.”

Smith always keeps an eye out for hidden and beaten up treasures around town.

“Most of the furniture that we find that is old or beat up or broken sometimes we find at garage sales, sitting on a curb, buy it on Craigslist or other garage sale sites on Facebook,” Smith said. “Sometimes people bring us their furniture and want us to fix it and restore it.”

Once Smith finds a new piece of furniture, she begins the process of restoring the piece.

“The process goes we find it and then we bring it back home and fix it, whether it be that we have to replace a drawer or fix hardware,” Smith said. “Then, we prep the surface for painting or staining, sometimes that means we sand it down and other times we have to strip paint the whole thing. Then we repaint it and put a special sealant on it and special waxes that add a bunch of color and depth to the project and then we let it cure for 24-48 hours and then it is ready to deliver to the customer.”

It’s something many of her students think is cool.

“I remember when I had her she used to talk about her furniture business with us in class and I thought it was really cool that she had her own business on the side as well as teaching,” junior Sydney Hess said. “It’s cool that she found a hobby that she liked and turned it into a business, not many people get to do that.”