Yay me! I have managed to remodel two rooms in my house for less than 150.00! I'm trying to really stretch it, and I may have enough supplies to do one more room. Crossing my fingers. Here's my success story.
Master bedroom has been without a floor for....oh, about 3 years. I tore the carpet out 3 years ago, and have been living with subflooring ever since. I would occasionally repaint it in white when it got too grungy to mop. I was going for shabby chic, but realistically, we're talking painted plywood. Anyway, 3 years of patience (read laziness, cheapness, and procrastination) finally paid off thanks to an unfortunate incident involving a leaky refridgerator hose and a locking mechanism change by a flooring manufacturer. Not that I would wish ill on anyone, especially to my own benefit, but my boyfriends sister lost a small portion of her wood floor thanks to the aforementioned refridgerator leak, and because of the change in the flooring design, they were unable to get a match for their floors. The beauty of this being that their flooring covered approx 600 square feet, from the front entry hall, to the office, kitchen, dining room and bathroom. She was kind enough to ask the insurance company if they could recycle the flooring AND the floating floor underneath, and suddenly, I have a new bedroom floor. By the way, she did end up with BEAUTIFUL new flooring, so it all worked out.
Cost of flooring - 0.00
Problem. Flooring is darker than I would have chosen and won't go with the current decor. Solution - paint it. (the walls, not the flooring) Thanks to gift card programs, I was able to purchase 4 gallons of custom colored paint without using any money from my budget.
Cost of Paint, brushes, and tape - 0.00
Tools - Okay. I could have saved some money here by being organized, but because I am not, and because I did not have until the end of never to go through my garage, I had to replace some things I know I have.
Cost of mallet, pry bar, drywall putty and knife - about 20.00
Crap. Who's going to install the floor? Me? Okaaaay... I was going to give it a whack, but I got suckered into taking in a little baby pug dog, and as luck would have it, the owner lays flooring for a living. He was so grateful that his puppy wouldn't go to the pound that,
Cost of flooring installation - 0.00
I love barter. Realistically, I'm going to spend more money caring for this dog over the course of his life than he would have charged for installation, but I'm going to overlook that as a "vague and variable" expense. Besides, love and gratitude count for something right? Think how much I'll save in therapy by having the love of a sweet, cuddly pug. I'm calling it even.
The main expense. The dresser. This is where my complete lack of patience came up to bite me in the arse. I have been looking for a dresser for a couple months. Yard sales, thrift stores, Craigslist. Have not found what I'm looking for, and if it was the right size, it was too damaged or too much money for what it was. Then one day I walked into the most evil shop ever (coincidentally, it happens to be my favorite store, too. The two are not mutually exclusive) and there was my dresser. Right height and width, 4 drawers, already made shabby chic with cream and chocolate brown - two of the new colors in my room. Perfect! AND, it's on casters, which means it will roll if I need to move it. For whatever reason, the people who refinished it put bright brass closet knobs on a shabby chic dresser (how much you want to bet it was a man?) So I am replacing the hardware with distressed wrought iron fleur d lis knobs. Yes, they are 3.00 each, BUT I have a gift card to the store to use to buy them.
Cost of dresser - a very painful 93.00
Cost of hardware - technically 0.00
Thanks to the paint I bought and additional gift cards, I was able to refinish 1 dresser, 1 trunk, 1 bathroom hutch, 1 bathroom cabinet (bought at a yard sale for 2.00) and a picture frame. Also I was able to refinish 4 sconces I found in my garage from a yard sale like 4 years ago (I knew I would use them!) and I purchased fleur d lis knobs for my closet doors to match the dressers. I used the paint from the bedroom to repaint the bathroom.
Cost to refinish the bathroom (get this) - 2.00
Am I proud of myself? You bet your sweet bippy. And I will be absolutely ecstatic if it turns out I have enough flooring left to do the office floor. I know I'll have enough paint.
Total remodel - 115.00
Who says procrastination doesn't pay off?
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