The Kitchen Sink

Having completed our bathroom renovation recently, we have now turned our minds towards the kitchen. Our laminate cupboards are peeling, the self lighting gas stove no longer self lights and the oven is falling out of the wall (legit). It’s time. But, it’s also going to take some time too.

When we went through the bathroom it took us about 12 months, from the time we made our first purchase to the day we moved back into our house. Now, I’m predicting the kitchen won’t take as long, but we are going to follow a similar strategy. Buy top quality, and buy it cheap. We bagged some amazing bargains when it came to the bathroom that probably ended up saving us thousands. The one thing it did cost us? Time.

Yesterday, we made our first purchase towards the kitchen, and it was such a great bargain I had to write about it. The sink is worth about $800 (Australian dollars for my international readers!) and to be honest I think I’d need to have had several bottles of wine before I’d even remotely consider spending that amount of money on a kitchen sink especially when this is not our forever home. We paid… $111 and delivery is FREE! Free delivery is one of my absolute favourite things.

My husband sourced the sink from an online store that has a range of hmmm I suppose you could call them factory seconds or damaged items. What’s wrong with it I hear you asking? Well, it has a number of dents in it. But here’s the best part….they are all underneath the sink, superficial and not visible on top. In my book, there’s nothing wrong with it if it’s not going to impact the use of the item and it’s not a fault that’s on display. If i have to open the cupboard under the skin and crane my neck at some weird angle to notice a slight dent in the metal then I’m more than okay with that.

So now it’s begun and we are on the hunt for more bargains. It really does become a challenge, seeing how cheap we can get top quality items using discount vouchers and codes. We don’t have an exact budget for the bathroom per say, basically it’s as cheap as we can realistically get things. We still want people to walk in and think the renovation was worth 20k (obviously without spending anywhere near that amount). I guess if we’re talking budgets then we are aiming for under $10k.

It’s about doing the research and putting in the hours online trying to find the best deal possible. It’s true that often different sites sell the same product and sometimes the cost can vary by hundreds of dollars. If we’re in front of the t.v., on the bus or in a waiting room somewhere, you can bet that we’re looking for a bargain.

Have you done a kitchen renovation on a budget?