I was recently asked by Stuff Homed for my three top budget renovation tips. I found it really hard to pick just three, so I’ve expanded on these to give you my ultimate list!
DIY
My number one tip to save money on renovations will always be doing it yourself! Jobs like painting, wallpapering, plastering and tiling are actually not that difficult as long as you have the right tools and equipment, and you can save so much by doing it yourself. Give it a go and you might surprise yourself!
Hire infrequently used tools
If you’re only doing a small one-off job like tiling a kitchen splashback, it’s usually cheaper to hire the right tools for a day or two than it would be to buy them. Buying cheap tools can be a false economy if they’re not up to the job, whereas the tools from your local hire shop should be well maintained and able to handle whatever job you’re doing.
Think outside the box
We found an unusual industrial style hanging shelf being sold as a candle holder, which we have used in our kitchen as a display shelf. Also, I recently used dressmaking fabric to recover a cheap vinyl headboard – it was easy to do, inexpensive and I think it looks great.
Shop around
It pays to shop around your local suppliers – we’ve often scored a great deal and excellent advice by buying from small locally owned suppliers instead of the big box retailers. Independently owned businesses are more likely to offer DIYers a discount, especially if you’re a repeat customer.
Shop around – part 2
While we always try to shop locally, sometimes it just makes sense to buy online if you can get something for a better price. You might have to wait a bit longer to receive your purchases, but the savings can be significant. If you’re looking for wallpaper I highly recommend checking out wallpaperdirect.com before buying from a New Zealand supplier. Their prices are usually heaps cheaper even factoring in postage, and the service is excellent (a recent purchase arrived only 5 days after ordering online).
Update don’t renovate
Sometimes you really just want to rip out everything in a room and start afresh, but it pays to take an objective look at what’s already there that might work with the overall look you’re going for. Our ideal bathroom would have floor to ceiling subway tiles on the walls, but achieving that would have required a major gut job putting our only bathroom out of commission for weeks. Instead, we decided to keep the perfectly good but slightly outdated square white wall tiles (they’ll be back in fashion before you know it anyway) and just update the look by tiling over one wall with a feature tile and also tiling over the existing floor tiles. We saved major $$$ and it was all done in less than a week.
I know what you’re thinking – can you really tile right over existing tile? The answer is yes – if the existing tile is in good condition it isn’t a problem. We also tiled over our existing kitchen floor tiles and you would never know the difference.
