Episode 18 - Budget Friendly Renovation

In this episode, Kate and Jenny take you through some key tips for how you can stay on budget during your renovation.

It doesn't have to compromise quality and it doesn't have to compromise aesthetics. But keeping on top of your budget throughout your whole renovation is sure to save you some money in the end.

Items mentioned:
- Jenny's budget tracker is available at jennysheahan.com
- Lefroy Brooks (bathrooms)
- Villeroy & Boch (bathroom)
- Kitchen Aid stand mixer
- First Fix (stage of renovation up to where plaster is put on the walls)
- Gannon & associates landscaping - gannonandassociates.ie
- Bosch tools
- DeWalt tools
- Coloured grout
- Mid-century modern antique phone table
- Paste-the-wall wallpaper
- Easy to clean rugs - polyester, polypropylene, short-pile rugs
- Contact paper to cover countertops
- Subway tiles

Transcript

Episode 18 -Budget Friendly Renovations

Jen: [00:00:00] You are listening to Rip It Up, the Renovations Podcast. Hi, I'm Kate. I run the Instagram page @victorianrathmines. And I'm Jenny. I run the Instagram account @workerscottage. This podcast is all about renovation and interiors from the renovator's perspective. We've been through it a few times between us and it hasn't scared us off.

In fact, we loved it. So if you are planning to do up your own home, you can expect to hear lots of advice from us. From our own experience along with plenty of tips and inspiration. 

Kate: In today's episode, Kate and Jenny are going to take you through some key tips for how you can stay on budget during your renovation.

It doesn't have to compromise quality and it doesn't have to compromise aesthetics. But keeping on top of your budget throughout your whole renovation is sure to save you some money in the end. Welcome back 

Jen: to the 

Kate: podcast. 

Jen: Hi Kate. Hi Jen. This is a topic that we get asked about a lot. A lot. A lot, a lot, a lot.

And for good reason, I think. To the point where, I don't know why we didn't [00:01:00] do it earlier. Like, why did we wait until episode 18? 

Kate: I feel like we've given nuggets of this in every episode. I think, you know, that was the intention. That was some of the feedback we got, wasn't it?

There was such great tips and like, how to say. Anyway, I won't ruin the surprise. Go ahead, intro the episode. What are we doing? My favorite feedback is people saying that they're taking notes. 

Jen: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Sit down, listen to the podcast, taking notes. If you do that, let us know. I hope you are.

That's really helpful. Anyway, we are talking about doing your renovations on a budget or budget friendly renovations. It sounds like we're trying to do the impossible, but no, it actually can be done and it might not be that you. You know, do it in exactly the time that you want. Anyone who's ever done some kind of project management will know, will be familiar with this triad of time, cost, and quality.

So if you're reducing Can have any two? Yeah, you can have any of the two. But you're unlikely to get all three. So if you're reducing the budget, that might mean that maybe you're extending the time. Maybe you're, [00:02:00] considering where you want to go for super high quality versus where you can scale back.

Kate: But it's possible. Definitely. Yeah. But I think we have a few key pointers kind of jotted down. So I think there's a lot of things that you can do to step through that will help people kind of do it. Yeah. So one of the things that we brought up a good few times actually, and especially when we were talking about the kind of building process and all that was about our budget trackers.

Do you remember we spoke about that and like we had like really detailed Excel spreadsheets or whatever spreadsheets you want to use, but the key thing I suppose when you're trying to maintain kind of the budget and trying to make it budget friendly or You know, save costs somewhere is setting the budget in the outset, you know, setting it, knowing what it is, talking with it if you're in a renovation with someone and starting maybe with your kind of wishlist of everything you really want, totting it all up in as much detail as you can, and then seeing how far off you are.

Jen: Because you can't know if you're going over budget if you don't know what you're spending and you can't know [00:03:00] how much you have left if you're not tracking it really carefully and it sounds painstaking, but. Laying it out super clearly line by line and planning it in advance is really genuinely going to help you get what you want and then know where to pull back and where it's not worth it for you.

Kate: Yeah. And one thing we said before when we were talking about our budget trackers is say we say you have a tab for every room in the house or you know, every type of finish or every trade or something like that, you start to kind of identify really quickly, wow, I'm way over in lighting or I'm way over in.

Flooring or tiling or bathroom fittings and you might be downgrading your, I dunno, Lafroy Brooks or villeroy & boch like bathrooms down to, you know, more basic brands or whatever. And that's fine too, but like it's finding out where you have that wiggle room versus where you've gone way over and maybe kind of Rob and Peter to pay Paul to get the whole thing to tally up.

Yeah. 

Jen: So here's how I did it. So my, I put my butcher tracker on my website, jennysheahan.com, so you can find it [00:04:00] there. But. The way I did it was, I did the same as you, I had a tab per room, and then I had two lists of, or two prices for everything. So I would go room by room, so say if I started in the kitchen, I would have the cost for, say, kitchen cabinets, the cost for the quartz, the types of countertops I wanted, the cost for the fridge I wanted, the cost for the, you know, various different appliances that I wanted, interiors, You know inside of the fittings all that kind of stuff like every single thing Down to the saucepans down to the knives and forks that I was going to buy because like all those little bits at the very End you need money left over for that.

Like you need to remember that you have to 

Kate: kit out your 

Jen: house Exactly, and that's easy. Especially if it's your 

Kate: first time doing a house or owning a house, you know, like that you didn't, you were renting up until this point, so you may not own all that stuff. So do you want a 

Jen: nice 

Kate: blender? Is your 

Jen: entire kitchen based around having a lovely KitchenAid mixer or something like that?

Yeah. It's like every single thing, like sit down and be so painstaking about everything. And then I had two prices for each one. One was the [00:05:00] kind of more low cost price for something that I would settle for. Maybe it was the cheaper kettle or, you know, the silverware from Ikea that would get me through until I wanted to buy my kind of permanent crockery or whatever it might be.

And then I had the price for the dream item that I really wanted and I had it total totted up at the bottom. At the end of each of those. So I would know what my entire kitchen would cost. My dream kitchen would cost and what my entire, you know, kitchen that I would settle for would cost. And then as I spent, as I bought things, I would put in the actual price that I spent, and then I did all sorts of things with like clever, you know, conditional highlighting that was showing me, because I love Excel, it was showing me where I was going over budget.

And then where I, then I'd be able to see from the rest of the stuff that I was buying. I was like, okay, well then I can't splurge out on marble countertops. I'm going to have to get quartz. Like that's not an actual example, but you know what I mean? 

Kate: Yeah. And you highlight a really key thing there. Cause you were saying [00:06:00] like, you know, the silverware or whatever, you had a dream one.

And then you said, whatever, basic Ikea one or wherever will, will do you for a time. And it's, it's important to know those trade offs and the trade offs you're willing to make. It's also important to know the trade offs you should make in terms of like a big renovation kind of, and the order of works we'll say.

So you can't retrospectively go in and put in wall insulation because it's there and it's plastered over and you know, it's complicated to go back and do that stuff. You can't rewire. And it will be more 

Jen: expensive in the end. Exactly. Like some things you can spend money on. You know, a temporary solution and then get the upgraded one later.

Some things you will lose money overall if you go back and do them, because it's more expensive to go back and do them at a later stage. 

Kate: You're, you're essentially doing everything up to first fix, you know, can't be done after the fact. So kind of keep that in the back of your mind. You know, if you really want wall insulation, you just got to cough up and pay for it at the start.

But then you may put off something else like a finish that might be easy enough to change out in a couple of years if you have the [00:07:00] money. So finding that kind of trade off and knowing. What kind of things in the major renovation do you have to put in provisions for if you're not immediately finishing that job or doing it, you know, or putting a finished job 

Jen: in?

Exactly. And listener, if you don't know what First Fix is, go back and listen to, I think it was either episode one or episode two. It's basically everything behind the walls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Where the wiring goes, where the plumbing goes, the insulation, everything you don't see. Yeah. Pretty much.

Kate: Talking about wall insulation actually, like, so we did all the walls in our last house and it was a major job because it was kind of, chip on, chipping off old lime plaster, insulating and then re plastering over it and then obviously repainting over it so if I didn't do the insulation then I never would have done it in that house.

So that's important to know but then one thing we didn't do immediately was insulate the attic. I mean it would have been ideal to do it immediately but we just didn't have the money left in the pot right then so like it took till the next summer or whatever and then. All attic insulation stuff went on special.

So we went out and did the rollout installation ourselves. [00:08:00] So that was something that we could put off in this house when we were doing the renovation. Now I love, I love the idea of having a really like efficient A or B rated home, but like, I'm not sure we'll get there immediately, like with this renovation, depending on cost, but something that we're thinking about putting in provisions for, but maybe not putting in as solar panels.

So maybe putting in, you know, the wiring and stuff that we'll need, and maybe potentially space for battery storage, but not actually putting in the solar for now. So things like that, you could kind of have trade offs and you know, know the provisions are there. It might not cost a massive amount more to put in the provisions now, but we won't put in the big spend of actually putting in the item right now.

Jen: So then actually planning your dream house, even if it's way out of budget and just knowing how far out of budget it actually is. is really helpful because you can, you know, once you have it all worked out and once you're like, well, actually I don't necessarily need, you know, solid wood flooring, for example, that's not, that wasn't a priority for me.

I'm happy to go with a laminate or an engineered wood or something like [00:09:00] that. And then knowing where you make those tweaks, actually, maybe you're like, okay, well, actually, if we, you know, it's only going to cost us, it's only going to take us five years to save for. This dream thing that I really do want and if I cut back here and make a plan for installing that now Yeah, then I can 

Kate: have it in five years time exactly And if you're still happy in the house you're in and you want to stay there then it's the time to do it Maybe not directly at the start 

Jen: So all of this is to say that there's a big upfront piece of work involved isn't there and just Really detailing out that plan and when I say down to the last, I mean, like I was nearly including toilet roll in my toilet.

Toilet 

Kate: roll holders. It's just everything. I was going to say toilet roll holders but no. Toilet roll just for reference. I did have my toilet roll holders in there. I think toilet roll is something you should never scrimp on.

Always buy the, the better toilet roll. 

Jen: And if you're ever in Kate's house, go to the toilet there, it'll be a luxury experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, coconut scented, aloe vera, toilet paper. Free fly. But yeah, even, [00:10:00] I definitely had my toilet roll holders in there, I had my coffee maker, like all the little bits.

And doing that exercise twice, I've been like, what's the cheap one, or at least the budget one that I'm, you know, the lowest I'm happy to go. And then what's the most expensive one and then planning out, if there is something big I want to do and I can't afford it now, what could I put in place now that will make it possible in a few years down the line?

It's really helpful. 

Kate: Yeah. So, okay. My renovation is going to cost me a load of money. So where else can I save besides kind of scrimping at the start and kind of trying to, trying to fix my budget tracker to suit my tastes, but like what else can I do? You 

Jen: can save on labor costs. Yeah. Certain areas. Yeah.

DIY. So where can you DIY? Because that's, yeah. Aside from. Buying actual items. It's the cost of getting people to do the work is the huge huge cost and in some areas It's not only worth that it's necessary and in some areas you can probably do a chunk of it yourself 

Kate: Yeah, 

Jen: which you did 

Kate: the stuff that's safe to do like, you know, I wouldn't go rewiring a house obviously or anything like [00:11:00] that But like some of the stuff at the finish at the finish line like that We don't necessarily have to finish immediately But we can take the house back, maybe a builder's finish if you're kind of willing enough for kind of painting and that kind of finishing side of it.

I think that's definitely worth it, like to try and do DIY stuff. But then I see a massive value in finishing as well, like, you know, there's really, really good painters. So if you're not super confident, it mightn't be the thing you want to take on. And that's cool too. But like, for me, DIY is definitely somewhere we saved a lot of money on our last renovation.

Jen: And I think there's a whole other episode in this because we're, we're not exactly the same on this one. I I'm not as DIY savvy as you are. And I'm also not as up for it as you are, because I w I just wouldn't paint the house myself. I just paid for it and I'd probably save the money somewhere else. But I think the lesson in that is that really think carefully yourself about like, are you actually up for it?

If you are, there's a huge satisfaction to be derived from doing it yourself and from upskilling in certain areas and learning how to do something. And, you know, looking back, [00:12:00] I mean, like I did this, I painted this room and it looks really good. You know, that's. 

Kate: Yeah, there is a lot of satisfaction. Well, for me, like my staircases, because I stripped both my staircases in the last two houses, it was a big chunk of change to get that done.

Like, rightly so, there's a lot of labor in it, but I take a lot of pride in, like, walking up and down, and those, a staircase in an old house is something that's always going to be there. Like, no one will never rip out that original staircase, because they're protected anyway, but like, I don't know, that's something that I took a lot of satisfaction in.

Painting the house, You did also cry, I should point out, at one point, right? I mean, I cried multiple times. Like, there were tears. My husband and I fought a lot. Just to be clear. Like, we fought a lot when we painted the house. It was a lot to take on. I'm not sure I'd do it again with kids. It's a lot. It's more than you think, like, so my advice would be, if you want to paint the house yourself, great, but maybe get your builder, if you're doing a major renovation, to do, to get a painter to do a basic spray finish of everywhere.

You know, pick your white or off white and just do absolutely everything. So then you're not under pressure to paint colors anywhere for a while, and you could do [00:13:00] it room by room and tip away at it. But I would say, like, painting a whole house from fresh plaster, mist coat, and then two coats of color, and ceilings, and everything, and joinery, woodwork, doors, everything.

Oh, it's a lot. It's a lot. You wreck your shoulders too. Like whatever about the mental challenges of it. Like physically, it's a very demanding task. Yeah. And high ceilings and stuff as well, especially in old houses can be quite dangerous. So yeah, like I, I love it. Would I do it again? Budget dependent. I'm hoping not to, but like it could come to at the end of the build that like, that's where we're going to save.

So we'll see when we get there. I remember years 

Jen: ago, my, my, I went into my grandma's house and she was, Well, she was well into her 70s, if not her 80s. She's 100 now. She turned 100 this year, my lovely grandaunt, and I walked into her house in the front door. She had one leg on the windowsill of the return of her landing and the other foot on the banisters and she was painting the ceiling.

I was like, what? What are you doing? Oh my gosh. 

Kate: So it's possible, but it's a lot of hard work. Yeah, definitely. I remember just before [00:14:00] I had my second baby, I was like really heavily pregnant. I'd say I was maybe two weeks off or something. And my mom was up and she's in her mid seventies. And me and my mom were like wire brushing all our front railings and painting them.

And like, we'd so many people walking past, especially men, we're like, not really, not okay with this. Like I should feel like, I feel like I should help or what? But we got there. So yeah, that's, that's a good tip as well, actually, you know, getting people involved that, you know, for your DIY, yeah, just offer pizza.

Yeah. Bit of a trade, like maybe you're a solicitor and I don't know, someone else, you know, is really like hands on, maybe you could trade. You know, skills or something or skill sets or something. That's a brilliant idea. I'll make your wedding cake if you do my garden. 

Jen: That's how I got my garden done. Yeah, that's a great.

Shout out, shout out to JV Gannon, brilliant landscaping. He did my lovely living wall and I did their wedding cake. 

Kate: Yeah, it is a great way of doing it actually. 

Jen: So before we move on from that one, how did you [00:15:00] decide what, what to DIY? 

Kate: Like what was worth it and what wasn't? Yeah. The stuff that was safe to do, I suppose, electric, electrics, gas, and plumbing are just a bit dangerous.

And I suppose the failures in those could cost you a lot of money, whether it's a fire or a leak or whatever. So like, you have to be very careful about what you DIY. And I think what we DIY is kind of more the upfront stuff. So when we buy an old house to kind of get us over the line until we renovate.

I would say. And other than that, I would say it's the finishes. Like the kind of, you know, like I said, painting, sanding the floors, you know, all those kind of more finishing aspect after second fix. We've done a little bit of tiling, but I wouldn't maybe do really expensive tiles. We did basic kind of subway tiles in a shower area or something like that, you know?

So I don't know. I think those finishing things after second fix are some of the stuff that we took on. And gardens, I think is one that a lot of people will take on because a lot of people really love gardening and it's not something you need to do immediately. You after you've done your renovation. It might not even be the time to do it, like to plant and stuff depending on the [00:16:00] time of year you finish.

So that's something you can put off and it's definitely something you can tackle yourself with a few friends and a few slabs of beer and pizzas, you know, on a warm day to help you out. Because it's really just grunt work. If you're 

Jen: listening, you're welcome for your garden and I really enjoy the beer.

Yeah. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: My last question on this though is, Tools, because like you want to make sure you mentioned, for example, sanding the floors, like that requires some specialist equipment for sure. And you want to make sure that whatever you are taking on, that you either have access to the tools or like buying them, isn't going to offset the cost.

Kate: And do you know what we found? We bought like, we bought lots of tools throughout the years and we still have a lot of them, but like some of them we just weren't using. So we resold, but. We always bought kind of good brand tools. Good brand tools tend to hold their value and they'll resell well. If you buy kind of crappy tools, it might do for one job but you'll never resell it.

There's no resale value. So, we tended to buy like, you know, Bosch or DeWalt or whatever. The kind of slightly higher end brands as opposed to just the basic, basic stuff. [00:17:00] And we resold it for like quite a chunk of what we paid for it. Now, when it came to sanding floors, that's very special. It's very heavy duty equipment.

So we, we usually rent it there. And a lot of rental places will charge you for the sandpaper. You know, the consumables to do with that machine. And that's the kind of watch out. It's the consumables that will catch you because the, the rental of the actual equipment is quite cheap, relatively speaking.

And then when, uh, you're hitting a load of nails, sanding your floors and all those sandpaper sheets keep popping, you know, there are a couple of euros a pop, you know, like they start adding up very, very quickly. So I suppose knowing the cost of the rental of the item plus the consumables, you know, all will add up.

So keep that in mind. Yeah. 

Jen: So all that to say, there's a lot, there is money to be saved, but it is at a A pretty significant cost, I would say, personally, physically, mentally. Yeah, for sure. So think carefully about doing it, but it is possible. 

Kate: Yeah, and then I suppose part of kind of DIY is kind of upcycling as well.

Yeah. And we've spoken about this [00:18:00] before. We love, like, you know, second hand, retail shops. Love it. And I think there's a lot of money to be made here and saved here. Like, if you're a savvy, like, you know, And also you might have some stuff already or family might have some stuff and it's amazing what kind of an upcycle can do on an old kitchen, putting new hardware on it and repainting it or, you know, sanding down an old yellow pine table and getting a nice stain on it or something like that.

So there's a lot of work and there's a lot of work in it, but there's a lot of value in it as well. If you're into that kind of thing. 

Jen: Kitchens are such a great one because like you might have, we spoke a good bit about this in previous episodes, especially our thrifting episode. If you go back to that one, but kitchens are a brilliant one because.

It's very, it's not difficult to repaint a kitchen. Like, I don't think I take on repainting. I don't think I do repainting a whole room necessarily, but I would take on the task of painting a kitchen if I knew I was gonna save significant money. Because you know, a bit of you, you sand it down, you put on an a, an undercoat, you've got two coats to go, and then a bit of a [00:19:00] finish and it's done.

And you can, you know, remove the cabinet doors very easily. You spray them if you have an area to spray them in a spray gun. It's not that hard. And as you said, they're putting on some additional hardware. You know, extra knobs, extra handles, whatever it might be. You have a transformation that you could be paying upwards of 20 grand for, for a new kitchen.

Do you know, for potentially a few hundred Euro, like it's really, it's, it's an amazing place to start. Yeah. The other thing that we mentioned this before as well is that you can actually paint tiles. So anyone who's there sitting. Looking at tiles that they really don't like, and you want something fairly plain, um, or, you know, you can paint a design on it if you're very artistic, uh, but you can repaint tiles, no problem.

So that's a huge cost saving area because getting tiles ripped out and replaced can be very expensive. So unless you want like specific new tiles and you just want a bit of a refresh, that's a great place to, to upcycle. 

Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Painting kitchens, wrapping kitchens, painting tiles. And even like a tile splash back.

If you've got a really basic tile, you know, [00:20:00] re redoing that yourself, you can buy the adhesive pre mix, you can buy the grout pre mix, like a splash back in the kitchen or something like that might, you know, really change the whole kitchen space. Especially in my case where it's like seventies patterned tiles.

But like, that's quite easy to do. Yeah. And it's a perfect little tester to take out. Like if you wanted to try tiling, like, or something like that. 

Jen: Yeah. And you said grout there, you can redo the grout very easily to put in coloured grout. So like if you're playing white tiles, adding a coloured grout could be a really cool way to give that a bit 

Kate: of an uplift.

Or even just re grouting, right? Like if you had really old tiles and they were just discoloured and yellow and grease stained or whatever. Like, just even re crowding them could give them a whole new lease on life. Yeah. And much cheaper than ripping them out. Yeah. 

Jen: And then furniture. I mean, I don't know if I've ever seen a woman love a furniture wagon as much as you.

I know, yeah. I'm second. Sometimes I buy 

Kate: shit that I don't need though, you know. I was being like, we need this. And I'm like, yeah, I know, but it was It's too good to pass up. I'm like looking at like this mid century modern antique phone table. You know the little phone tables we used to have? It's on [00:21:00] AdWords at the moment and I'm like, I don't need it.

It's so cool. Like, do you know, we don't have have a little bench beside them? Yeah, you can have your home. I love that. Like, yeah. A little seat. Shout 

Jen: to your friends for hours and they get screamed at by your parents. Yeah, yeah. And 

Kate: the corded phone, like, so. I just thought it was so cool. I thought it could be cool for a little nook or whatever in the house, but, yeah.

I don't need it. I don't need it. But I really want it. 

Jen: Yeah. It's definitely a place to save money. And especially like there's two areas I would say save money for kind of repurposing old furniture or upcycling. One is if you've moved into a bit of a wreck and before you start doing it up, you know, you just need something temporary, definitely go and check out secondhand furniture there before you go splurging on something new.

Better for the environment, it's more sustainable. And you know, maybe you find something that you love and that you can, Upcycle that will go into your kind of forever home or you know when once you've moved in and you're looking to save a bit of money is there something really really fabulous you can find on Dundee or adverts or whatever and again go back and listen to our thrifting episode.

I think maybe it was episode 12. Loads of tips on that. [00:22:00] 

Kate: And also like recovering old furniture as well if you have it. It's decent. Like, I remember getting a free sofa in our last house. So before we renovated, we were sitting on garden furniture for quite a bit of time. And I was like, please, can we just get a sofa?

Like my husband was like, no, it's a waste. Like, we're going to be moving out in a few months. And I was like, yeah, but we have a few months that we need to sit down in the evenings. And I'm kind of sick of sitting on garden furniture. So I got a free sofa on adverts and it was a free bowl concept sofa. 

Jen: I remember.

Kate: And the person Like, it was actually pretty good, like all the wadding, everything, it wasn't ancient, but they had gotten a red wine stain on it or something and it never came out properly. So they just gave it away for free. So I went and collected it and gave them a bottle of Prosecco or something like that.

Collected it in a go van for eight or ten euros for the hour or something. And it was really nice, but it was so nice that I was like, when we were moving out, I was like, I'd really like to just recover this. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: Because it was such a lovely sofa, but we just didn't have the storage and stuff for it, so I Paid it forward and gave it free to someone else.

Jen: Yeah, I [00:23:00] got mine, my temporary one. It was a beautiful corduroy one and it was for I think 50 euro I got it from, from what was the NCBI, what is now Vision Ireland. Yeah. And they're unreal because they, you can get a delivery service there. They'll come and pick up your furniture as well if you're, if you're, if you need to get rid of stuff, as long as it's pretty good quality.

No, but that's 

Kate: great. I think any of those secondhand, whatever, and just think about re covering them if they're really good pieces, but they're maybe just, you know, tattered in terms of the fabric. But then also salvage. So salvage in general, not just for furniture, but I'm talking like for old houses like this, like where you might need to replace doors, internal doors and stuff like that.

You think your doors are like, Completely different, but like there's a million, but no, like there's thousands of houses with the same four panel doors or six panel doors or whatever kind of style, kind of old doors if you have, a Victorian house or one of these kind of houses. So we got kind of a lot of salvage stuff.

Um, we got bifolding doors between our living and dining space, but they have all types of kind of internal doors, window frames, you know, [00:24:00] stuff like that. So those salvage yards are definitely worth a look and you get it for a fraction of the price if you have a good joiner or whatever to fit that stuff.

Architectural Salvage Yard. Yeah, and Max as well in Travellers it, got it. Yeah, but absolute. I think we reported from memory three and a half thousand for the triple bifolding doors in our last house just to make them kind of new for the space and we got them on salvage, in a salvage yard for 350 euros for the three of them.

Wow. Yeah, so we just had to pay like, we had to get like new hardware and stuff like that and then we just got them refitted to the opening. The opening wasn't cut yet, so we could adjust the opening slightly to fit exactly for the doors. But, major savings to be had for stuff like that. Fabulous. Yeah, yeah.

So then I suppose, besides kind of upcycling and restoring furniture and stuff like that, there's a lot of, if you're not doing a major renovation, say like the ones that you and I did, you can also have kind of high impact, kind of low cost stuff as well. Like if [00:25:00] you're not willing, you're not rewiring and re plumbing and all that like painted wallpaper, better lighting, like we said on kitchens, you know, replacing the hardware and just repainting and stuff like that.

There's a lot of those high impact, low cost stuff if you're not going through a major renovation, like paint can really transform a place and if it's a temporary thing. You might not want to invest in really expensive paint, but just, you know, colour match to whatever thing you want for now. Paint and wallpaper can make such a huge difference.

And in our case, we wallpapered some of the rooms just because we weren't refinishing the walls straight away. So, say for the kids room. Like, there's such nice wallpapers now, and they're not expensive. They'll cover over really, you know, bumpy walls or bad walls or kind of peeling paint. So, that's a really good idea.

And lighting can actually make a huge difference as well, because sometimes you might, you know, You know, buy a place that was an old rental or something like that. And why just have all horrible cool white bulbs, you know, and then changing that lighting. Lighting is 

Jen: the most instant transformation, I think.

Yeah. Possible. Like it's just getting rid of naked bulbs, switching out bulbs from white light to [00:26:00] a softer, kind of more yellowy light. Going for diffuse lighting, adding a few lamps, like you can have a totally different room. Yeah. With some good lighting. Yeah, and 

Kate: definitely listen to our lighting episode on this because we go through everything from like the warmth of the bulb to you know how bright it needs to be for the space and the types of lighting.

But I think like changing lighting can change the whole ambience of a room, the look of a room, the colour of the wall, it can change the colour of the paint on the walls, you know. So all those things I think are kind of low. Um, low cost, but high impact stuff you can do. 

Jen: And wallpaper is easy to put up these days.

It used to be a bit of a faff. No, it used to be a huge faff and now it's only a bit of a faff. Because you paste, they've changed the way you do wallpaper. You put the paste on the wall now, just make sure you buy paste the wall wallpaper and it's much, much easier to put it up and you know, it can be really low cost.

So this is, I suppose, if you're, Either in a house that you're not planning to stay in forever, it just needs a bit of a facelift. Um, those are all things that are amazing ways to save money. Or you've moved in and you have to wait for a while until you get your renovation done. And you don't, you know, it's really, it does need a bit of an uplift for you to be [00:27:00] happy in your home 

Kate: for the while that you're 

Jen: there.

Kate: Same, like my little room I'm in now, my little office room. Like that patterned wallpaper, like this, this, all the walls in here were just fiberboard. Like it was horrendous beforehand. But just like, I was able to paper strain over those for now and it looks actually really nice. I feel like, I feel like do we need to actually do it in the renovation?

I know we need to do other stuff to the roof, so possibly knock on anyway, but like, yeah. That wallpaper is fab. And it was really like, it wasn't expensive wallpaper either. So like things like that make a huge difference, I think. 

Jen: And you are in your office room. This is a little teaser for what's coming up because we're recording virtually today.

Usually we're together. Yeah. But we're recording virtually today on video call because we're going to be Doing it soon with a special guest. So keep your Yeah, very special. Peels for future episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Practicing. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, paint, wallpaper, better lighting. And then you said it earlier, replacing like the knobs on your kitchen, especially your bathroom.

We've said this many times, bathroom vanities [00:28:00] are off the wall expensive. I don't understand why, but you can just swap out the knobs or paint them or whatever. And you have an instant kind of bathroom refresh and any other hardware, like just great for an instant, an instant one. Another one as well that you had mentioned before is rugs.

Yes. Oh yeah. Changing out your rugs. Like if your 

Kate: floors are really bad or you can't afford to change them out right now or you maybe you've given them a light sand and just kind of sealed them with a clear varnish then a big large area rugs will kind of hide a multitude. 

Jen: Yeah again something you could potentially find low cost in a secondhand store but it'll need a good cleaning.

Yeah. It's hard to get the smell out of fabric. 

Kate: It's very hard to get the smell out of wool rugs. Speaking from experience, like I've had to throw out wool rugs and even though I got them professionally cleaned, you can't really, unless they're really specialist cleaned where they like. You know soak them and wring them out like a basic kind of cleaning does not get smells out of tape wool rugs, but like polyester polypropylene rugs You can cut a power hose kind of and they'd be kind of okay 

Jen: And a short pile rug pretty easy.

Yeah, [00:29:00] and a big large one that covers a huge area like you're laughing Yeah, yeah, and there's such 

Kate: nice ones now like and they're not that expensive as well Yeah, and then temporary 

Jen: flooring is a great one. 

Kate: Yeah 

Jen: I know you have this at the moment to some laminate flooring where you're not planning to You 

Kate: Yeah, in the kitchen we put in really cheap laminate.

I'm talking like 10 or 12 euros a square meter or something like that. And it's fine, like, We fitted it ourself. It was pretty simple to fit. That's a nice temporary option, but absolutely fine for kind of medium term as well, like, you know, it's still fine. Besides maybe the print is a little bit worn in parts, but that's one option.

But also like we've original floorboards here. So we just sanded those. Cause I just couldn't get the smells out of the original carpets that were all over the house. And I didn't want to, they were just disgusting. So we took them up and just re sanded them and stained them. So that's given us kind of a bit of time as well.

Yeah. 

Jen: And finally, so. Cool. What was lino, what's kind of now vinyl used to be such a, you know, used to be really cheap, you'd know immediately that it was kind of a roll of lino, but actually it's gotten really good now and it's [00:30:00] still not that expensive and it can like, it's a perfect, it's super easy to lay down.

Like you can literally just cut it with, you know, a really heavy duty scissors or an exacto knife to your own layout and it's down. You kind of just, you know, you don't necessarily even have to glue it. You kind of just fit it in and that, that's a really, really good option for a temporary floor covering.

You just go in, buy a roll of it or. Get a cut to your specification and down you go. Another one that I love as well, back to the topic of kind of temporary, doing up your kitchen temporarily, and we spoke about this as well before, is covering your countertops with contact paper or a vinyl wrap. It's sturdier than you think, like don't go chopping your vegetables on it, don't do that on most countertops, but uh, it's sturdier than you think.

It's a really effective way of just giving your countertops an instant kind of up fresh or an uplift or freshen up. And, and very, very low cost. 

Kate: There's a, an Irish company, I've forgotten the name, I think it's like Cover Style or Cover something. It's Cover Something anyway, we'll put it in the show notes, but they're wrapping whole kitchens and countertops and like it's a serious transformation and a fraction of the [00:31:00] cost versus putting in a new kitchen.

So definitely something to be thinking, thinking about. And tiling as well, you can get really good deals on tiles and like, Say for us here, there was no shower upstairs. It was just a bath. And so we wanted to put in a shower over the bath, but the walls, you know, wouldn't have been waterproof or whatever.

So we just tiled with basic subway tiles, the shower area, and like they were super, super cheap, easy to do. But like in general, even if they're more medium, long term ones, I think you can get great deals on tiles if you shop around and get clearance stuff. So it's definitely somewhere to save, I think, unless you're like you and absolutely obsessed.

With very specific tiles. I do love tiles. I very much love them. But like, like, like, yeah, like we were saying in one of the other episodes, like you kind of know where you want to splurge, right? Like everyone's got their few things, like, but I think tiles are something that Or you will if 

Jen: you do your budget tracker properly 

Kate: and then you'll be able to, you'll be able to get the things you want.

It's definitely more of a design choice, I think, tiles, whereas you can still get really good quality tiles for quite cheap, I think, do you know? Yeah, [00:32:00] definitely. 

Jen: And like, you can make, if you're not so mad about tiles, but you want something that looks cool, you can make. You know, very low cost tiles look amazing with, you know, color grout again, for example, or laying them in different patterns or whatever it might be.

Even just white tiles and black grout like looks really cool. Laying them in different 

Kate: patterns has such a major impact. I saw it actually, I have a whole Pinterest board like dedicated to this, just tile pattern ideas because they're the most basic tiles, but then when they're laid in different patterns, like I've seen ones done in like a double herringbone or.

Like a kind of a, a double kind of vertical zigzag kind of thing, but they look so cool. It looks like a totally different tile, completely makes them way more expensive and way more custom looking, I think. 

Jen: Yeah. And again, that back to like, either just black tile or white tiles and black grout or vice versa, if you want to go, it's a bit different.

80s looking or something, but, uh, even just two different color tiles, like again, very, very basic tiles, but in a geometric pattern or in something creative, like if you, you know, it's, it can be really [00:33:00] easy to do and super low cost way to get very, very high impact, like entranceway, for example, or backsplash or something like that.

Kate: Yeah. I might tag a few. I think we, we, we spoke about it before, but like, just the tiling pages that we were following that like, there's just such good inspiration there because I feel like you really need to have the vision for some of these, but like, I think, Yeah, if you look at some of those, you can really do something really impactful for a pretty reasonable, I would say.

Yeah. So I suppose then, what about, I think shopping in general. Oh, one more, one more 

Jen: actually very cost effective thing, sorry, is curtains. Because curtains and blinds can be off the wall expensive. So expensive. Really, really expensive. And getting them made to measure. But, if you're anyway handy, first of all, you can potentially make your own curtains.

Yeah. And you got some fabulous fabric in. Because they're. 

Kate: Newbridge. The fabric outlet. Newbridge. Yeah. Newbridge Fabric Outlet. And they actually have kind of people, you know, they've contacts for people who make curtains. So I got three sets of curtains for Matt, like big set windows for like 900 euros.

And I think they would have been about 2000 [00:34:00] euros per set anywhere else pretty much. So if you're willing to kind of dig around those places like the fabric outlet and stuff like that and get maybe kind of end of line fabrics and you're lucky you can save a lot there. Yeah, if you've kind of, but if you've standard sized windows, there's really good pre made stuff now as well.

There is. I actually really like Hari Kari. Yeah, they're lovely. They just have 

Jen: lovely stuff. Yeah, they have a huge range. You know, it's, 

Kate: it's very good value. And I think that the blackout ones They have a nice weight to them so they always kind of look that bit more expensive I think. 

Jen: Yeah, agreed, agreed.

And as long as they're long enough, like don't, don't go too short, that's the one thing I would say on curtains. But as long as they're the right width, if they're too long you can get them taken up or you can even just use something like Wonderweb, you know that iron on, heavy on stuff. Yeah, yeah. Um, that's really, really good.

Kate: Yeah. Talking about Sharp, one smart kind of shopping strategy is going to those places, like those outlets and stuff like that. But beyond that, like, you know, bulk buying, I think, you know, if you've three bathrooms, trying not to get like, go to 10 different bathroom places, you're more likely to get a [00:35:00] deal if you get it all from one place and.

And tell them that you're going to be 

Jen: buying 

Kate: three and what 

Jen: can they do for you? Exactly. That's my favorite line when negotiating. Yeah. I'm going to be buying three. What can you do for me? 

Kate: And in my experience. Bathroom places vary wildly for the same brands. I feel like sometimes the sales in bathroom places just cycle and they go, you know, from place to place.

So I don't know. I always feel like bathrooms always has a bit of wiggle room in their pricing. So like one brand mightn't be on sale where you're buying it, but ask them, say, I'm looking at this stuff. I've seen it for this price somewhere else. Can you do any better? And I'm sure if you're buying a load of other stuff, you've got much better kind of bargaining chip.

Yeah. You know, with the, with the shop, I think, but always look for sales and discounts as well, like, as in like overall, I think just like look for those kinds of sales periods and if it's something that you can buy that the place are kind of comfortable keeping for a little while until you need it, or, you know, it doesn't all have to be shipped aside or whatever immediately, why not buy it when it's on sale, you know?

Yeah. 

Jen: Just be careful with the [00:36:00] sales. Cause I find sometimes you can go into the January sales or whatever it might and you. End up buying loads of things that you don't need, or you think you might want in your new house. So I would just be very strict with your list when you're going in and Make sure that like you're going in with a mission.

You're getting the thing that you need and then you are getting out put the blinkers on. Like don't buy that statement armchair that you think might be cool in your new room, because You'll find impulse to be impulse buy. 

Kate: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure. No, no, I agree with you there, but more the, the bigger stuff like bathrooms and stuff.

I think there can be good kind of, yeah, sales and discounts from kind of buying all 'em for one place, but buying at the right time as well. 

Jen: Another one on that, avoiding impulse purchases or making the wrong purchase or whatever is when I was shopping for all my finishes, I had a bag, like a go bag, , that I would grab and take with me when I was going shopping and that had a pain sample.

Of the paint that was on all of my walls, fabric samples from my main pieces of furniture. So my, my [00:37:00] sofa, you know, my built in banquette, all that kind of stuff, a measuring tape, crucial, and make sure you have everything measured, like where your sofa needs to go, where you're thinking of putting that corner table, like, I definitely can't eyeball things.

I need to have the measurements right. Like, you know, it needs to be really right. So just make sure that you're, you're really clear on that. I had tile samples. I had everything because the color, it might seem right to you when you're in the shop and then you get home and it's just a bit off and that can really ruin a room is like having Almost the right colors, but they don't actually quite go together.

Bring the samples, hold them up against it and measure it and just make sure that it is right before you buy it. Otherwise you end up with this like, cushions that you were like, Oh, but they look kind of grand. They're kind of grand and they're close enough. And then you don't want to get rid of them and you can't return them because they were on sale.

You 

Kate: know, be 

Jen: careful. Yeah, 

Kate: no, 100%. And as much as you'd like to think you can, no one can remember the actual shade. Because say you're, just for example, I was looking for throw cushions for my couch. I. Didn't have the swatch of me and like then I was [00:38:00] looking at these throw cushions I was like, that's the color my couch in is but you're always a bit off You're always a bit off.

Always. When you're, when you're presented with a wall of color, it'll just throw you You, you can't know for sure. But like, I like your idea as well Do you remember you were saying as well to take a picture of Say it's something you can't move like your sofa or whatever to put, was it like red, blue, yellow on it?

And then it kind of rebalances kind of what you can see, or sometimes I take a picture of stuff with my hand because I kind of know the colour of my hand and I can kind of judge off it a little bit better. You know, if you, if you can't take the sofa with you, like if it's a fixed, fixed large piece or something like that.

But yeah, I love the idea of having your swatches and all that to hand if you can at all. And always ask like a furniture shop or whatever, if hoarder, can you have a swatch of the fabric? Yeah, always. Because chances are you can. 

Jen: It will save you from just the wrong purchase. It'll save you from buying things twice.

Yeah. And return costs and time and everything. Yeah. So please do it. 

Kate: Okay. And then I suppose this is a really, it's not budget friendly, but it might be saving [00:39:00] you money in the long term. And we kind of touched on some of this in our last Grants episode, but Energy efficient upgrades and stuff like that.

If you have the money up front, it's great to put in kind of stuff immediately or else put in the provisions for it to put it, put them in later on. So for example, what I was saying later earlier was that we might put in solar panels later. If we don't have the budget for it, but just putting in the provisions for it, that it's not a huge job then when it comes to it, but those ones like, you know, insulation in your attic is relatively inexpensive, could have a huge impact on kind of your heating costs and stuff like that, upgrading your lighting we spoke about and just switching to LEDs where it's not LEDs.

And if you are installing thermostats, consider smart thermostats and stuff like that, or smart meters and your electricity and stuff, which are all getting installed at the moment. Just so you can track some of that usage. It'll probably save you in the longterm if you can. Yeah, 

Jen: so when you're doing out your budget, you know that those aren't, they're not the places you cut.

Yeah, exactly. Because they'll save you money in the long term. Like some things you buy and then that's [00:40:00] it, the money's gone. But some things you buy and actually it does save you money back. You reap the benefits for years and years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Solar panels are an interesting one. And again, we have an episode on, on this in our grants episode, a few episodes back and there's loads of information there.

But it's a funny one because when I was looking, when I was renovating in 2020, I looked at solar panels and my roof is really small. So the area that I could cover, it wasn't really worth it. The payoff period was something like 25 or 28 years or something like that. And I couldn't justify the price at the time, but now they've gotten so efficient.

There's so much better that I'm so glad I didn't buy them. Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes it's hard to know, like, do you, do you pull the trigger now? How much better are things going to get? Like electronics are such an important one of that. Like you mentioned before about having. A TV don't have an alcove like cut out for the shape of your TV because you are going to upgrade your TV.

You're going to get a different TV, you know, at some point you're going to get different kitchen appliances. Um, anything electronic [00:41:00] like that, it, it, it changes. It comes along so much. So having the basics in place is great. And then being smart about knowing is now the right time to buy it or should I hold off for a few years?

Is this likely to advance a lot in a few years? Yeah, it's always good advice. 

Kate: Yeah. And if you're unsure, maybe just putting in the wiring or provisions or something like that, this. Is the right thing then? It's the right choice to make for now? Especially if it's 

Jen: newer 

Kate: technology, I suppose. Yeah, yeah. If it's something 

Jen: very established, you're probably fine.

But if it's newer, maybe just think about whether it might be worth holding off for a few years. Because I'm going to get them now and I'm so glad that I didn't get them, you know, four years ago. Because they're just so much better and so much cheaper at the time. Yeah, yeah. The payback would have been way shorter.

Kate: Yeah, definitely. And grants will kind of make that decision for you one way or the other as well. They, if the grants are great, like, or the grants are absolutely fantastic, maybe then it's the right decision to put them in, you know. Yeah. And that's another money saving tip. Go back and listen to our Grants episode.

It's 

Jen: full 

Kate: of information, loads there. It's free money guys. It's free money. Just go get it. Yeah. Where did you think, where do you think you saved the most money overall? Shopping [00:42:00] around, I think, well, like I suppose, sorry, taking DIY out of it. Cause if we were to kind of estimate the amount of work we put in in terms of DIY, it was probably worth a huge chunk.

But other than that, I think it was pre COVID when we bought everything. So we shopped around a lot so far as like, we got even a lot of our bathroom stuff in the UK, cause the price was just. wasn't comparable down here. Like, so we got it from a lot from the North or a lot from the UK. So that saved us a lot.

But I think, yeah, DIY and shopping around, what about you? One tip actually 

Jen: for shopping around that I did was, as we've mentioned, I love tiles and I splashed out in tiles and I got them from the UK. Now this is pre Brexit and pre COVID so it wasn't as expensive even as it is now, but I went on, I think it was a Facebook group and found somebody else who was buying tiles from the same place that I was buying them because the shipment cost was insane.

And usually with items like that, if you're buying them from abroad, you typically have to pay shipment costs per pallet. Yeah. So Whether you fill a pallet or not, you're paying for the pallet. And I [00:43:00] didn't fill a pallet and I didn't need to fill it to fill a pallet. So I found someone else who was planning to buy from the same place and we split the shipping costs then.

So that's a really good idea. Just go around and say, you know, I'm planning to buy a shipment if, if you're buying somewhere abroad that has expensive shipping and do check that out, like factor that in when you're making your budget. Like, is it going to be expensive shipping? That was a big one. Yeah.

Other than that, I think where I saved the most was, um, Do you know what, I was living in the house before it was renovated, which is harder maybe with a family. But in 2019, 2020, I was living on my own. I had, the house was like, when I say derelict, like it hadn't been occupied for years, it, it didn't have central heating, it didn't have hot water, it barely, it had a, it did have a toilet, but it was an outhouse, but, and you know, it was damp and there was loads of things wrong with it.

But. I spent a good bit of time doing all the things we mentioned there, like putting down lino, laying down rugs, putting up a bit of wallpaper, you know, treating the damp and the mold, making it [00:44:00] livable, showering in my gym instead of at home. And that saved me so, so, so much money and like living in it until the very last minute.

And it's another potential, I suppose, if you're doing up a very big house is, is there an option to do it section by section? Is there a way to do it? Where you don't necessarily have to move out because rent while renovating or waiting for renovation is a huge, huge, huge amount of money. 

Kate: And look, when you're doing a big renovation, there's no doubt like a builder will want you out because it'll make it easier for them a hundred percent.

But like maybe there's a kind of a turning point or a, you know, handover you can do for part of the house or something. Or maybe you can work with them to say, can we get at least like the kitchen, bathroom and one bedroom done or something like that. And then other finishes can come later that you can move back in maybe at.

a kind of builder's finish or something like that, because we all know we have to save on rents at the moment because they're insane. So like, yeah, it's something if you're not doing a major renovation, maybe you can do it. Kind of room by room, if you're not doing a full rewire, full replomb, which usually [00:45:00] requires you to be out of the house to some, for some period of time at least.

Or if you're insulating all the walls and all the walls are being knocked down and stuff like that, you kind of really can't move out. Then you have to get out. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe there's a sweet spot where you can kind of agree to move back in, you know, that you have a drop dead date, that you're renting somewhere for three months or whatever, something like that.

Something to definitely think about and talk to the builder about early on. How soon do you think we could move back in, at least a part of the house? Yeah. That could be worth it. Yeah, definitely could be worth it in the long term. Longer. 

Jen: I think we have saved you all the money that we can save you. If there's any more tips.

Kate: Yeah, any more tips. If you saved, let us know on Instagram. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: Because I'm going to go through it again in a few months. Because since I spoke to you last, I have my planning. 

Jen: Yes, we should have started with that. 

Kate: I know. Huge news. So many exciting updates coming on your Instagram. if anyone's got them, send me a DM.

If we missed any, please send me a DM. I'll share them. And I'll use them. [00:46:00] 

Jen: Hopefully that was useful. Let us know. 

Kate: We'll talk to you again soon. 

Jen: See you in two weeks. Bye. If you found that episode useful, please do us a huge favour by giving us a like and a few stars. And especially click that subscribe button and that will make sure that you get a notification for our next episode.

Thank you.