Helpful hints to stay on budget when building or remodeling

 

My hubby and I were really excited about building our dream home, but we knew that we had to watch costs. We wanted to make sure that our "forever home" was exactly what we wanted, while making sure that we kept our budget in check.

We had an arrangement with our builder that allowed us to source our own items. He gave us a budget sheet that laid out the costs of every item. This allowed us to know what our budget was for every category. For instance, the budget for lighting was $2500. The budget for closets was $1000. This gave us a reference to know how much we could spend and still stay within our total budget.
We used many of his contractors for framing, siding, concrete, etc., but we were also able to source our own when it came to tile work, electrical, heating and air conditioning, and special carpentry projects. It was important for us to use our small town contractors whenever possible, so we always had them bid.

Sourcing our own items was not always easy. The downside was that it was very time consuming. The upside was that we ended up with exactly what we wanted. We often joked, in the 9 months that it took us to build the house, that we spent our date nights at the home improvement stores..." Dinner and Menards", instead of  "Dinner and a movie".

If you are building a house or remodeling, here are some helpful hints to get what you want while staying in budget:

Lighting

As I mentioned before, our lighting budget was $2500. That budget was fair if we wanted standard lighting. However, we needed to have fixtures that fit our modern farmhouse vibe, so we used some creative ways to find what we wanted.

1. We used a liquidation website. There are a million of them out there, but you have to find one that is closest to you. Shipping is normally outrageous, so we would purchase several things at once and drive to our nearest location 2 hours away with a truck and trailer. However, this allowed us to find some really unique pieces at a fraction of the price.




There's nothing like loading trailer in the
middle of June in Indiana.

2. We also shopped the clearance racks at our local home improvement stores. Weekly, we took a trip to the stores to see what had been newly marked down.

The end result was that we did not go over-budget on the lighting at all, but we love the light fixtures in our home.

Doors

It was very important to my husband that we have solid wood doors throughout the house. He likes the feel of them better, and they are also safer. The budget we had for doors was for standard, builder grade doors, so we had to get creative. Doors can be very costly, so this was not easy to accomplish.



After living with him for 9 months and spending his Father's
Day doing this, somehow my dad still loves me. BTW
that's mom in the background thinking, "What have we
gotten ourselves into!" Don't forget the two handsome boys
who look pretty excited to be there.

Our first buying trip for the doors was pretty memorable. It was Father's Day. We had just moved back from Texas at the end of May, so this was early on in the building process. We had taken my dad and my hubby out for BBQ, and then decided to run by Menards for a quick errand. The quick errand turned into a door extravaganza. We happened to walk down an isle that had nothing but clearance doors. Some were slightly damaged or in pretty bad shape. Others were sample doors or returns. There were tons of them, so my hubs and I and my mom and dad rummaged through doors for nearly 2 hours. The kiddos were none to happy about the process, but they survived!

By the end our search and find that day, we ended up with 7 hardwood doors that we really liked. The catch was that they were not all matching, which truthfully I loved. It matched our eclectic farmhouse theme even more. Plus, now that they are all painted, I dare anyone to even notice.

It was loaded so well the first time,
but this one got unloaded to
fit the new doors.

We drove 45 minutes to the next closest Menards the next week and picked up a few more doors, but we didn't stop there. The following week, we had to drive to the liquidation warehouse to pick up a very large purchase we had made. On the way back, we decided to hit yet another Menards. Luckily, we found three more doors that were the missing pieces we still needed. Not so luckily, we were in Menard's parking lot completely unloading the already full trailer to try to fit three huge doors into the mix. It is funny now. It was not so comical at the time, in the middle of July, in Indiana, on hot pavement, but it was worth it in the end...I think :-)

It was truly a lot of hard work to find the doors we wanted, but the  final product was a house with mainly the hardwood doors my husband wanted; the unique charm I love; and a Father's Day story we will be telling for years. Most importantly, we stayed in budget.

Closets

Our closet budget was $1000. When I looked at that number, I about fell over. Our floor plan had a massive master closet. I was really excited about the closet I had designed, but there was no way $1000 in our budget would cover the fixtures for it, let alone all of the other closets in our home. This money would allow for white wire shelving throughout the rest of the closets, but it still would not cover it all. I really did not want to fill our master closet with the basic shelving, so we had just decided that our master closet would be a phase 2 project. We would put in temporary storage and freestanding hanging racks until we could complete the closet the way we wanted.



Thank you closet gods!!!

Apparently, the closet gods were looking out for us. The week before we were supposed to have a closet company come out and give us an estimate for outfitting the rest of our closets with wire shelves and hanging space, Menards was getting rid of their closet displays. We were there for any number of things we needed, who knows at this point. We walked by the closet section, and there were signs all over their displays. Displays we had looked at before for phase 2. We figured out what we could use, and talked to the manager to see what kind of a deal he would give us if we took several of them.  Then, we called the store that was 40 minutes away to see what they had available. We drove down there immediately and purchased several of theirs as well.

In the end, we did go over budget slightly. I believe that we spent around $1500 for everything, but our master closet was exactly the way we wanted.  The boys also had some wood shelving in their closets that we supplemented with wire hanging. We were also able to get a beautiful glass piece to use in the pantry that was a leftover piece from one of the displays we purchased. It was a win, win.

We used the online liquidation stores and clearance sections to source everything from plumbing fixtures, vanities, appliances, tubs and showers and tile. It was not easy. The process was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. We had to spend a lot of extra time and energy and a few band aids to get exactly what we wanted, but it was so worth it!


...and for your viewing pleasure... my hubby and his doors!!!