I bought a house in January after looking at 48+ other houses. As luck would have it, I bought a dud. The previous owners had hid all of the problems with a little paint and plywood. In Feb my basement was basically underwater from foundation cracks and I knew we had to do "some" fixing.
Over the course of a year I spent $20,000 on upgrades and fixes to my house that I had not planned on spending. I don't make a lot of money, but I refused to be in debt. I thought I might spell out below how I saved money on some major items for my Reno and maybe there are components I did that you hadn't thought of to save money.
-a new roof. A leak in my kitchen led to discovering my roof was basically three layers of old shingles. I shopped around and was quoted over $8000 for my whole roof as the cheapest option. I offered to pay in cash and they reduced it. Then offered to leave their street sign branding out for as long as they wanted and they "threw in" my garage roof for free. I whined about other problems and they also threw in roof vents for free as well. I paid $6800 for the entire roof in the end.
-new furnace and air conditioner. While the home inspector was an idiot and said everything was hunky-dory, my furnace was this beast of a creature that was no longer working. The air conditioner was also 30 years old. For discounts, it's all about who you know and not being afraid to ask and use friend-of-a-friend for discounts if you have them. My best friends dad is in this line of work and hooked me up with a great itty bitty furnace that now fits in a closet, a new air conditioner, and all new venting for a great deal. He also knew of a furnace rebate promo and sent off for it for me, so I got $250 back there.
-flooring. I shopped around and was essentially looking for the cheapest I could get. Eventually Rona had a good sale on a particular light wood laminate style, but I wanted to use the Lowes "take 6 months to pay" option. I priced matched with Lowes for a similar style, price matched underpadding with somewhere else and walked out with some great savings.
-Up flush toilet. These are the fancy basement toilets that don't require piping into the floor and cost over $1000 usually. I got mine for somewhere around $750 while it was on a short promo sale, plus I sent a note to the vendor asking if they had any rebates available if I were to purchase the unit. Saniflow let me send in for a $50 rebate that they didn't advertise, just because I asked.
-new walls and sub floor. DriCore has a great subfloor material and at the time was just coming out with a new wall material called SmartWall. For their subfloor, my dad made friends with the dricore rep who let dad buy "seconds" from their factory store. Instead of paying $6.50 a tile, we paid something like $5 (not a big deal but that was $155 that stayed in my pocket). Then for the walls, I contacted the company asking how I could use their wall and save money since each panel was $50+. They advised to find some hockey magazine that had a coupon for $10 back a panel, plus if I did a testimonial for them they'd give another $100. We bought the panels on a storewide discount sale of 20% off, then we sent in for the rebate with receipt and got $430 back, plus another $100 when I did the testimonial (read it here: http://www.dricore.com/en/test_sam.aspx). In the end we had too many panels so I took the extras back and got a gift card for something like $250. I also sent in a question to dricore when I had a couple flaws in the wall and they offered another $100 gift card to come out and look themselves.
-Ontario power authority rebate. This was advertised a bunch, basically make at least two improvements to your home to save energy and get rewarded. I contacted a company which had to basically do a "before" test and an "after" test. Things that qualified were like, changing out windows for reward of $-- a piece, change out doors, reduce "air leakage" in your house by sealing stuff up around windows and doors and walls, new furnace installed, etc. Unfortunately for me, I only found out about this program AFTER the furnace and 3/4 windows had already been changed out. I missed out on some rebates there which was disappointing, but got $1750 (in two installments) back for what I did complete.
-windows, sump pump bucket and perforated hose piping. Not sure if I should promote these ones, but when it comes to unnecessarily expensive items, watch for how they're priced in store. The windows for my basement were $250 each, so when dad was at a store and found one priced in the wrong spot at $75 he didn't ask questions! He got three windows for $75 each. Same deal with the sump pump hose, which was in really the wrong spot and I paid something like $20 for the $100 hose. The sump pump bucket (which looks like a garbage can with a weird lid) was scanned at the cash register as only $25 because she only scanned the lid. The bucket portion was another ridiculous amount so we just paid and didn't ask questions.
-drop ceiling and tiles. Kijiji! I am a shameless Kijiji buyer and seller. We found used tiles from an office and paid $150 for 85 tiles (that's 1.75 each compared to brand new 6.50 each) and another guy took $150 for three boxes of metal bars. After installing the ceiling for my whole basement, including closets, I still had a box and half leftover. I took these back to a store for a store credit and got a whopping $170 back. I still have 20 tiles leftover as well, which are sitting on Kijiji right now (so far sold 5 for $10 haha)
-vanity, sink, medicine cabinet and shelf. Outlets or warehouse or "re-store" places. Vanities are expensive, so we were happy to find an outlet-style store nearby. I picked out a vanity with matching cabinet and shelf and paid $250 for it all, which for the same version at Lowes started at $1000.
-paint and supplies. Ask your family and try the cheap stuff. Chances are someone in your family and friends network has paint supplies in a bucket in a closet somewhere. Mine did, everywhere. I didn't have to buy a roller, brush or tape - just paint. For paint I wanted a basic grey, but since it's just a basement I didn't want anything fancy. Walmart had a sale on "Loop" paint, plus when I talked to customer service they said we could try a bucket and if it sucked we could bring it back (if we only used a bit). I took a chance and bought buckets for $15 a piece on sale and was actually very happy with the result. Two coats and it had good coverage and dried quick. Bonus!
-ceiling fans, faucets, and more. Auctions! There is a great "home renovation auction" place called Bryan's that is a great place to start shopping. They specialize in complete kitchen cabinet packages, but also sell everything else for renovations. At any one auction they'll have sinks, toilets, hot tubs, exercise equipment, flooring, seasonal stuff, doors and windows, faucets, drills, dehumidifiers and more. It is an auction setting so you should know your budget before walking in. We were able to get two really really ugly ceiling fans for $20 each that painted beautifully. We also got a couple faucets there for cheap and I think every time we went we came home with something else. When I get around to fixing my kitchen, I'll be starting there for my cabinets.
Okay that was a lot and doesn't cover everything either, but it gives a good breadth of ways to save on your next big project. I might write a part 2 of this, considering I saved on every single item in my renovation :)
