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Brady and I watch a lot of home renovation shows. We’ve especially been interested in watching kitchen remodels lately. The one we watched last night featured a couple with a dated kitchen and their budget was $30,000 for just the kitchen. I can’t imagine!! We purchased our first fixer upper for $30,000 and only put $25,000 into the entire renovation, including new roof, wiring, plumbing, kitchen. . . everything! That house was a FULL gut and we spent less on the ENTIRE house than these people did on just their kitchen! My budget for this house is around the same, I’d like to keep our renovation cost to $20,000-$25,000 (including all of the structural issues we are having to fix). The way around this exorbitant cost is bargain shopping! I am the self-proclaimed princess of bargain shopping. . . my mom is the queen.
Thanksgiving week is the perfect time to scoop up some deals. Home stores offer sales on things you may not think about as they are gearing up for Black Friday. At the Lowe’s Pre-Black Friday sale, we were able to score the marble herringbone backsplash that I’ve had my eye on for half price. That is cheaper than I can get the knock-off my normal discount store. If we were ready to purchase windows Lowe’s is running a 20% off custom windows deal right now. They do this fairly often for big holidays and that is the only time I will purchase windows.
I have already had a little good luck for furniture. While at work I happened to meet a wonderful lady wanting to sell her furniture before moving and was able to pick up a beautiful farmhouse table, chairs and hutch for $400. All pieces are solid wood and in great condition. I will recover the chair cushions to match my decor but this was the find of a lifetime.
I have also purchased the top of a china hutch to refinish and use above the vanity in the hall bath. That was a grand total of $150 for the piece. I will strip the finish off, either repaint using chalk paint or stain (depending on how well the finish comes off), and wall paper the back of the cabinet with something simple to compliment the decor in the bath. I will have a beautiful and functional piece for MUCH cheaper than I could even buy just a mirror at a big boutique home store.
This weekend at Dirt Cheap I happened across the perfect white vessel sink for the hall bath. I wanted a very simple white rectangular vessel sink as not to overshadow the show piece of the room, my refinished China hutch topper. The sink if purchased at Home Depot would have been $75 plus tax, at Dirt Cheap it was $30 plus tax. It’s not the deal of a lifetime but every little bit saved helps with the overall budget.
I also scored a huge lot of matte black subway tile for free! It will not be used in this house, but I have enough to use as a back splash in a future remodel or for a tiled shower. It will be stored until I find a house that it suits. This curb find is a great value, when I researched the tile, it sells for $5.95 a square foot and I got it for a whopping $0.
All interior doors, front door, and mud room door were purchased at a discount store. My front door at Lowes (exact same door) is $1,500. I got mine for less than half at the discount store. My interior doors were also half the price of purchasing them at a “regular” store. The discount store actually had a better selection of interior doors than the big stores did. I got the highly sought-after farmhouse style interior doors for a fraction of the price, and they are not used doors, these are new still in the box doors.
The 33″ beauty you see below is my Amazon Black Friday deal of a life time. This is a single basin, farm house sink. Normally at a store this would run anywhere from $300 to a thousand or more. I purchased this one for $260 through Amazon on Black Friday. Check it out here: https://amzn.to/41VVzL1
Renovating Wright 