Bathroom Renovation on a Budget – Part 1 – Minimalism?

So…my boyfriend and I are going to renovate the bathroom/toilet. We are aiming to do this on a smalllllll budget. Mostly because this is not a forever home, this is a starter home and it’s important that we don’t over capitalise because it’s highly unlikely that it would significantly increase the value of the property. I’ll update you on our bargains at a later date, as there’s something I want to get off my chest first.

Anyway, we were lucky enough to score a wooden vanity top for $100 instead of $219 (there were only two left so the guy gave us a deal!) however, the piece needs to be customised as it’s too big for the space but luckily my dad is a carpenter (another frugal score) and has offered to do this for us. However, this also means that there will be leftover wood, which we have decided to use to make shelves for an empty wall in the bathroom. Now, I don’t particularly feel the need to put up shelves, but when I came up with the idea I wasn’t thinking about us or our needs but the wants and desires of future buyers.

It’s common knowledge that the vast majority of home buyers LOVE lots of storage space, you see it on TV all the time. A real estate agent is taking a young couple through a property and they comment frequently on either the lack of storage space or how much storage space there is. Storage seems to be a significant selling point for a property, hence why we’ve decided to use our wooden off cuts (at no extra cost to us) to install shelves on a current empty wall.

Upon reflection, this is something I really felt the need to post about, mostly because as a minimalist, I’m renovating a bathroom for someone who isn’t practicing minimalism. I find this quite ironic, yet I wanted to really discuss this idea. I obviously feel that based on my exposure to real estate that people love storage space to store unnecessary stuff and the fact that this is something I’m thinking about has really make an impact on me. I don’t need those shelves, the under sink storage space is sufficient for my needs as well as my boyfriend’s. But, the fact that I feel the need to renovate my bathroom based on the stuff of future potential buyers is such a strange concept.

I think it truly represents a major problem with the world today, we have too much stuff and it’s easy to predict that people who may live here in the future also have too much stuff. The very fact that this ‘stuff’ doesn’t even exist in the house yet is incredible – it’s not here, yet it’s impacting my life. It’s dictating my decisions for goodness sake. I can’t believe that I’m a minimalist and stuff that doesn’t exist is controlling my life…(slightly dramatic but you get the point). Even if minimalism is something that we practice it seems very difficult to actually get away from ‘stuff’.

The fact that ‘stuff’ has this level of control over our lives makes me want to throw more things out. So, on the weekend in response to this realisation I cleaned out my car and got rid of some old papers and broken sunglasses. I also went through my wardrobe and relieved my space of a t-shirt that I bought six months ago and haven’t yet worn. It’s amazing what motivates me sometimes.

We will still install the shelves and will probably end up using them purely because they are there, but I won’t buy more stuff just to fill them. We aren’t yet ready to start the demolition, but once we’ve purchased everything I look forward to writing a post on what we’ve bought and what we’ve saved on (and if we manage to stay on budget – ha!).

Have you ever done a renovation on a budget? What impacted your decisions?