Little ways we save big

There’s just something that drives me nuts about first time home buyer shows and home improvement blogs! Many times we are led to believe that the only way to remodel your home is to gut a room and spend tens of thousands of dollars.  If you can afford this, then by all means. But most of us just can't (she says while skaking fist at beautiful pictures on pinterest)! However, there are easy and inexpensive ways to update your home and make it beautiful ON A BUDGET!

We’ve had quite a few questions about how we’ve been able to afford to update our home on our shoe-string budget. So, here I compiled a basic list of creative ways we kept our costs under control both in our new home and in past projects.

IF YOU’RE ATTEMPTING A RENOVATION OR DECORATING PROJECT ON A BUDGET, HERE ARE SOME TIPS TO GET STARTED:

1. Make a list of the things you want to change.

Depending on the home, this could be a list of varying lengths. When you are finished, re-write the list so that it is written in the order of priority (i.e. are there moisture/mold issues which must be remedied immediately?). This tactic should help you feel less overwhelmed.

2. Make decisions before you spend

Don’t buy things on a wim! Start prowling the aisles at the hardware or home décor stores and perusing the internet (I recommend Pinterest) way before you start tearing out walls. Get a good feeling for what you want in fixtures, colors and appliances and what they cost. If you still aren’t absolutely certain, my suggestion is to start a Pinterest page or bookmark pictures with inspiration rooms. Make sure they are realistic!!! Focus your efforts on getting inspiration from spaces that are the same shape, size or have the same color of stock fixtures. Make notes about characteristics that are consistent throughout your posts. Perhaps they all have dark stained cabinetry, maybe they all have shades of blue paint on the walls, or all of them may have a beachy theme? These consistent features may help you make conclusions about your own likes, dislikes and goals for each space.

3. Scour your local Habitat for Humanity Restore

Do–it–yourselfers can reap big savings with recycled or lightly used fixtures and building materials. Habitat for Humanity operates about 400 ReStores nationwide, which offer salvaged materials at extremely reduced prices. If you're doing your own work, you can find anything from prehung doors to full sets of kitchen cabinetry to partial bundles of insulation. (To find a ReStore near you, visit habitat.org.) We found the sinks for our bathroom remodel at our local Restore for $12 a piece (Price at the hardware store ~$50 a piece.

4. DIY

I am particularly lucky that my husband is a talented handy man and carpenter. We saved a considerable amount of money with him doing nearly ALL of the work in our new house. There are lots of classes at local home improvement stores, and we highly recommend YouTube learning. I also tend to be pretty crafty and creative, so I usually try to find a DIY solution to all of my decor must haves before I spend extra money to buy something new.

5.Thrifting

When it comes to the décor, I put my thrifting skills to work. My thrifting began out of necessity, but over the past few years, it's truly become something I enjoy. Now, when I need something for our house, I almost always try to thrift it first. It's really hard for me to spend big bucks on something at the real store when I know I can put in a little extra effort and find something I love for $20 on craigslist, at a garage sale or a thrift store.

We are constantly scanning Craigslist! I have seen new tools, lumbar, lighting and furniture listed for a fraction of the brand new price tag. [[I really wanted a solid wood dresser/buffet for our new dining room, but I wasn't willing to spend a bunch of money. After watching Craigslist for several weeks, I came across something practically perfect for $80 that would have cost me hundreds from the furniture store.]]

While I can't find everything I need by thrifting, I tend to start by trying to find something used (some things may just need to be fixed up) before I look for something new. When that doesn’t work I make my way to the discount stores and watch for sales, see points 6 and 7.

6. Shop online discount retailers.

My very favorite discount website right now is Amazon. Recently, we purchased our new bronze bathroom fixtures at unbelievable prices, and by using AmazonPrime they arrived in just 2 days.

Even ebay is an excellent resource to find items from your favorite store (i.e. West Elm, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Crate and Barrel, Anthropology). Don't forget that many home improvement supplies can be purchased for less online. This can be both affordable and convenient. Think about items such as painters tape, stain, or brushes. I've even been thinking about ordering some new cabinet hardware and wall hooks from ebay or Amazon.

7. WATCH AND WAIT for deals, specials, coupons and closeout sales.

This seems like a no-brainer, but it can be hard to wait for items to go on sale. I do not like to pay full price for ANYTHING. Just ask my husband. I want to buy the best of the best with the 10 bucks in my pocket. Most of the time, I am even successful! For instance, we needed insulated curtains for our new home to help prevent heat loss from the many large windows on our main floor. Do you know how much curtains cost! Arg! I went from store to store, researching and asking about upcoming sales. I scoured the internet for coupon codes to the stores I was interested in. Then we waited for what we thought was the best deal and bought all of the curtain panels. We saved a fortune! You can score good deals if you’re willing to do your homework—possibly footwork—and be patient.

8. Work with what you’ve got

While I am not in love with the builder-grade oak kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, completely replacing them isn’t an option for us. Cabinets are an interesting thing. On the one hand, they seem important and when they look bad, they really seem to make the entire room look bad. But cabinets/vanities actually take on less wear and tear than a couch or dresser. I simply can not justify spending $30,000 for custom cabinets, and more importantly, it doesn’t seem necessary. So, for the most part we’ve opted to repurpose existing cabinetry throughout the home with a high quality paint job or with gel stain. If your cabinets are wood, then they should be easy to refinish (and your time will be worth while). If they are in poor condition, it may be more difficult to simply paint or reface the stock pieces. However, gel stain will cover almost anything, including laminate.

Note: While I am all about saving money, remember that using quality materials will save money in the long run, so know when to penny-pinch and when to splurge. For instance, I did invest in a paint sprayer in order to get a professional look at a DIY price tag.

If you are like us, replacing ALL of your outdated light fixtures may just be out of your budget. Never fear, and never underestimate the power of paint on an old and outdated fixture. We found that a little bit of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint completely updated a mismatched light fixture. Then, for a fraction of the cost, we simply replaced the standard bulbs with those fancy Edison filament bulbs for a completely new look. You can find these at the hardware store, or even on Amazon, here.


9. Be Patient

I think it important to note that for us, having a budget means that a given room may not be finished in a single weekend and we may not be able to add all of the details right away. It may take weeks for me to get ideas, search for deals and make a decidedly difficult purchase on what little money we have to spend.  When you have a budget that you need to stick to, you need to be patient. DIY takes time, thrift stores are usually filled to the brim with junk nobody wants, and you may not be able to recreate those popular pinterest posts in your 80's-loving bathroom. The key is to remember that you shouldn't get discouraged with your budget. Don't give up!

And with those tips, my friends, go forth and renovate, decorate and beautify...on a budget!

Living Room Reveal

When we first found this house, I loved this room. Together, the combination of the mantel, built-in bookcases and flood of natural light from the huge wall of windows make for a warm, inviting room.  

While, this room clearly has a number of positive attributes, the tile surround on the fireplace was beige, boring and outdated and the brass on the glass doors were catapulting the room back to the 80's. A large (bathroom-like) framed mirror on the wall seemed oddly out of place. Finally, the dark yellowy beige wall color needed to go.

My plan A was to do mosaic glass and metallic tiles – and then I priced out the tile I wanted, and whoosh, it was going to be crazy expensive to do this small project.

Plan B. We found a beautiful, natural stone mosaic tile that we both loved at Lowes, that was also much more affordable. It's a mix of grey, white, cream and beige. The colors are perfect and coordinate well with the rest of our new wall colors. Here are the obligatory before and after photos. 

Below are photos of the fireplace, in progress. Once the tiles were removed, things got worse before they got better. Casey found a mess in the lower right corner, hidden behind some sheet rock that looked a little funky (like it had been wet at some point). Fortunately, I was at work while he pulled it out along with what resembled an old rodent/insect nest. We are not sure, but the critter had been long gone. This problem was remedied, the insulation and sheetrock were replaced and the area was prepped for tile. Within another day, he had the beautiful new tile up (yes, he is now a tile master...see our guest bathroom remodel). Next, the brass bars and pulls came down and were painted with high-heat black. Finally, the mirror on the wall was pulled down, and up went fresh paint on the ceiling, trim, walls and built-ins.

 

Here are a few more photos of the final project. I can't say enough amazing things about my handyman husband whose skills are clearly making our house into "the home" we want. We love how everything is turning out! 

 

 

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Thrifty Decor Chick

Easy master bathroom update

Our way of working with a small budget is to focus on what we can change while making the best of what we have. I would love to upgrade to a fancy sunken bathtub and gorgeous marble countertops, but that's just plain unrealistic. In the meantime, we wanted to at least upgrade the space by using a few inexpensive diy tricks. 

 

Paint:

We started with a fresh coat of bright white on the ceiling, trim and doors and then used Behr Castle Path on the walls. Remember my "greige" paint post? Well, we continued this trend here.

 

Clean and restore the grout: 

The ugly old shower doors were removed. [In the photo they are deceivingly hiding behind the striped shower curtain…nice trick previous home owner]. The shower tiles were cleaned and then grout was removed, replaced and sealed.

Let the light in:
We removed the dingy mini blinds that were permanently keeping the sunlight from creeping into the bathroom. I am a big fan of natural light, but not a big fan of having to open and close a bathroom curtain as needed, nor of having the neighbor boys see me in my skivvies...The solution was to add a privacy film to the window. It was such an easy and inexpensive solution, and its quite nice to look at!

 

Updated mirrors and linens:

Casey removed the mirrors, which had been heavily GLUED to the wall. He then spent the next day repairing the damage to the sheet rock, ugh. Once the wall was repaired and painted we added a new pair of beautiful medicine cabinets. To top it off, I picked up the rug and curtain from Home Goods.

 

Currently, the walls are devoid of artwork and the vanity could use a little update, but that will come this Spring. Stay tuned!

Our guest bathroom remodel

When we moved into our home, we were faced with a boring, outdated, beige guest bathroom. The vanity was good quality, but still, boring builder-grade oak. Also faced with a small budget, we aimed to come up with ideas to update our bathroom that wouldn't cost a lot of money. Well, Casey started with a plan to re-grout the shower and remove the ugly old shower doors. What should have been a relatively simple and quick task unearthed a huge moisture problem underneath the existing tile. So, down came the tile, the cement board and the insulation. Up went fresh new everything + beautiful new tile...all courtesy of my professional handyman (Mr. Hutchinson).

Faced with a necessary shower update, we decided that now was an ideal time to update the yellowing countertop and outdated wood vanity. We found a few sinks at our local Restore for, get this, $12 a piece! Score! This little find saved us quite a lot of money.

  While Casey worked hours to give the countertop a beautiful tiled  facelift, I stained the vanity.  After doing a lot of research, I settled on the General Finishes Java Gel Stain because I read and saw nothing but positive things about it.  Some of the other products, like Minwax (especially the polyshades), had some spotty reviews.  The price of the General Finishes gel stain is similar to the other products with the main drawback being that you have to go to a woodworking store like Woodcraft to find it.  The General Finishes website has a store locator feature to help you find its products. You can also order this product on Amazon.    
This stain goes on beautifully, so by the third coat, there’s no hint of streaking or builder grade oak showing through at all. The real trick is the use of a men’s sock and the lack of a wiping process. I will post my tutorial here, soon!
  This past weekend, we added a couple of mirrors from Home Goods and a little bronze paint to the existing light fixture. We also purchased new cabinet hardware, but haven't gotten the time to install them yet.    At any rate, here is the new and IMPROVED/AMAZING guest bathroom!

The Dining Room: Progress

Hey friends and family! I'm here today to share some progress that we've made in our dining room! Just like all of the other rooms in our new home this one still isn't finished but I feel like we've made enough headway to at least show you what we've done in here so far. While it is difficult to see, the original wall colors were chocolate brown...far too dark for this room. So, I achieved one of my big goals which was to paint the walls grey. I love how the rich gray makes the new bright white trim pop. You can also see our "new" buffet, which was an amazing (and cheap) Craigslist find, and the newly added 

crisp white curtains. 

My favorite feature in this room is definitely the chandelier! I am so excited that the previous owner put in a fixture that so closely matched my taste! Now, we really can't wait to entertain in here!

Operation Organize: DIY Jewelry Storage

I hope you all had a fun weekend! We were busy here running all sorts of errands, making progress on our guest bathroom remodel and generally trying to get our home together. The master bathroom is nearly complete, with the exception of a shower curtain. For today though, I have a few images of my newly organized jewelry collection (thank you husband) which now graces a little corner of our bathroom. I have to say it has been so much nicer having them all hung like this instead of getting all tangled in a drawer.