Brooke Riley knew she had to do something. She worked in the high-bill complaint department at the local utility company in Mayfield. “You get cussed out and yelled out. I heard it all,” she said. “At the end of the day, no matter how joyful you are, it just takes a toll on you mentally, and it’s just exhausting.”
It took a physical toll as well, landing her in the hospital with stroke-like symptoms. While there, doctors discovered heart issues that otherwise would have gone undetected and untreated. “Something had to give,” she said. “I just felt like this is not really where God wants me. It felt like something just stirring in my heart.”
That stirring turned into an idea. In 2015, that idea turned into a leap of faith—the launch of Re-Fabbed (Re-Fabbed.com), a DIY decorating-on-a-dime blog with a now-massive online presence and social media stardom, as well as Re-Fabbed Boutique (Re-FabbedBoutique.com), an online-only webstore that pulls in millions of dollars annually.
Brooke’s work and success have been featured in national publications, including 2021’s Forbes Next 1000, which recognizes up-and-coming entrepreneurs.
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Initially, Brook’s idea was to write a simple DIY lifestyle blog about home decorating and how to do it on a budget. She wanted her husband, Brandon, on board. At the time, they were living in a single-wide trailer with their two young children while their new home was being built. “I told him, ‘I’m going to start sharing my stuff with everybody—all these makeovers I do, all these house flips. I’m going to write about it, and I’m going to tell stories that really engage people. And I’m going to get all these readers,’ ” Brooke said. “I had these huge dreams, not even knowing how to do this or run a website or anything about technology. At all. He was like, ‘OK.’ ”
“At the time, it was the best decision for our family,” Brandon said. “We had two young children, so, not only could she follow her passion, but she could be even more present in the lives of our children.”
After “googling everything,” Brooke decided to launch a Facebook page and hold live, online events. “All of a sudden, they could see me saying these things, and they could hear my ‘Brooke-isms,’ and my country twang,” she said. “They connected with my blog on a totally different level and connected with me. We started becoming family, and my [Facebook] page began growing by leaps and bounds, which—as that was doing that—so was my blog.”
Eventually, Brooke took another big leap and quit her full-time job. “It didn’t make sense to the outside world why I would leave something like that for nothing except this dream, and most people don’t even know what a blog is,” she said.
Nevertheless, her popularity grew exponentially. Re-Fabbed now has more than 850,000 Facebook followers.
Those followers began asking about her clothes and her earrings and how they could buy similar items. “So, I thought, ‘How can I take this need and actually help them and provide something for them?’ ” she said.
Re-Fabbed Boutique was born in 2018. Shortly after, Brandon, while recuperating from bicep tendon surgery, saw the potential of the new venture. “I just fell into it and said, ‘Why don’t I take this off your plate while I am off for surgery?’ ” he said. “During that time, our little boutique that began in our spare bedroom blew up. We sold more in a month than I could almost make in a year.”
Now it was Brandon’s turn to take a big leap. He quit his full-time job just three months after his surgery. “The boutique, under his wing, has soared,” Brooke said. “It has absolutely amazed us. We will hit over $5 million in sales this year in the boutique alone.”
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The Rileys now have a team of more than a dozen employees. No longer storing the boutique inventory in their bedrooms, they have a warehouse in Mayfield, with a second, larger warehouse set to open next year. They work with several contractors and buyers to keep their online-only shop up to date with their favorite trends.
“I still pick out some things, and I am still very much observant and watching what we’re getting and making sure it stays in line with what our people want and what we want and what I like,” Brooke said. “[The boutique] started out with me and what I like, because everything I was wearing were obviously items that I liked, and it was what [our customers] liked.”
In addition to operating the Re-Fabbed blog and Re-Fabbed Boutique, Brooke hosts fee-based online coaching groups. “One day, I woke up and said, ‘I’m starting my coaching group today.’ I’m going to put it out there. There was no planning, but I had it in my head,” she said. “[It] came about from listening to my audience, once again knowing I had something they wanted to learn and being able to tap into that and help my family but help them as well. That was something I didn’t plan to do, either. It just happened.”
Brooke called the coaching program one of the most rewarding aspects of her life. “There are careers out there for everybody with a passion,” she said. She wants her followers to realize that they can create something valuable for themselves when they do what they truly love and for which they have a talent.
It took getting screamed at daily at work, a health scare, and a lot of courage to get where they are today. The Rileys know taking that first step can be scary, but there’s “never going to be a right time” to work on a passion.
“It didn’t feel like it made sense to start a boutique out of a single-wide with four people living there when you had no space,” Brooke acknowledged, “but it worked out. When you take that leap of faith, just run with it and do what you’re being called to do.”
Frugal Christmas Fun
Every now and then, I get an assignment that makes me squeal. “We’d like to run a profile on Mayfield-based blogger/entrepreneur/DIYer Brooke Riley,” my editor wrote. “Also, we’d love to include Christmas decorating on a budget.”
Interview a person who made a successful career creating crafting projects for pennies on the dollar? Write a story with her tips and tricks on using your imagination and inexpensive items? Make more Christmas decorations? Yes, please!
“Eric, we’re going to the craft store!” I announced to my husband shortly after getting the assignment.
After poring over Riley’s website, Re-Fabbed.com, I found a few items I figured I would attempt to recreate. They looked easy enough. “The easier the better,” Riley said during our Zoom conversation to discuss her blog’s meteoric success. “I do easy things. It’s not that I can’t do harder things, but I just love to share those easy projects that you can get done in a short amount of time and have something beautiful to show for it.”
It took a while to go through all her projects. A simple “Christmas” search on her site resulted in 46 pages of all things holidays. “I’m well known to be a Christmas fanatic,” she confessed. “You walk into my house, and it’s like Santa’s workshop threw up. A winter wonderland—that’s my jam.”
Finding inexpensive holiday items at the end of October wasn’t difficult, considering Christmas began taking over store shelves three months before.
With the necessary paints, miniature ornaments, wreaths, etc. in hand and maybe a few more items that I MAY need later, and my husband—bless him—trying not to be the Grinch that he tends to be this time of year, I cleared my kitchen table and got to crafting.
I made a few changes and substitutions to fit better with our usual holiday décor. Riley emphasized that’s exactly what you should do. She has her favorite go-to’s as well. “I like to use candies, like peppermints and gumdrops, and use those in apothecary jars for a punch of color or whatever your style is,” she said. “Let’s say you just have a basic bedspread in your bedroom but you want to have that festive touch. You can go find a really cute Christmas table cover or even just a red one and throw it along the end of your bed … usually for $10 or $15.”
Another favorite decorating trick Riley employs is to strategically place bits of decorated greenery—called picks—at various points in the house. “I love to use picks with the greenery or little pinecones that would stick in something or make an arrangement. I stick those all the time in and around everything,” she said. “You can have a little Santa sitting there and you stick a pick beside it, and it changes the whole look. And it’s just a dollar or 50 cents. I have hundreds of those that I’m sticking in different things along the way just to spruce up the decor.”
I did grab a few picks—some items that “I may need later” to make our house look like it was decorated by a professional. I’m not sure where I’ll stick them, but hey, if it makes my house look trendy and festive for only a dollar each, I’ll find some spots.
Altogether, my new holiday pieces cost roughly $20 (not including the I-may-need-these-later items). So, yes, you can flex your inner interior designer and not break the bank.
“There are so many ways you can decorate for Christmas on a tight budget and still make it look like you weren’t on a tight budget,” Riley said.
For more decorating-on-a-dime ideas, check out Re-Fabbed’s blog at Re-Fabbed.com and her Facebook page at facebook.com/refabbedbybrooke.