Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Money Saving Reno Tips With Michelle of 4 Men, 1 Lady

Something we love about the home-slash-DIY blogosphere is that no matter someone’s renovation budget, there almost always seems to be some great story of money saving. Whether it’s salvaging existing materials, shopping for steals, negotiating a deal, or simply doing it yourself, there are some great stories of frugality and ingenuity out there. So in that spirit we thought we’d periodically share some cash-monay saving tips from some of our favorite bloggers. And maybe we’ll sneak in some eye candy along the way. Sound good?

First up is Michelle from the blog 4 Men, 1 Lady, who has always wowed us with her jaw-dropping transformations. But I should let Michelle take over so you can hear it from the lady herself:

Michelle Bio Pic

We took a 1970’s rambler complete with gold formica counter tops and rust color carpet and did a complete remodel. We had a good game plan what we wanted to do pre-remodel but once took a sledgehammer to the place we started to see the real potential and the list grew. Thus our estimated 4 month remodel took 9 months. People kept telling us that projects always cost more and take longer than you anticipate and unfortunately, we were no exception to that rule. Seeing the budget quickly go south I knew I had to be really careful about how the money was spent. I made it my goal to shave anything I could off the budget. Here’s what I did.

Michelle Kitchen Before

Michelle Kitchen After

Cabinets: We exhausted Facebook and asked everyone we knew if they had any good references. Instead of paying a premium price we found a very talented cabinet maker who just quit at a major cabinet company and was starting his own business in his garage. We were able to get inset, custom cabinets for the same price we were quoted at IKEA. Savings: $2,500.

Michelle Cabinets

Appliances: I shopped around and found a package deal on high end appliances…”Buy two get one free!” Savings: $1,500. I also was able to buy a floor model hood and the salesman also threw in the family discount. Savings: $700.

Michelle Appliances

Lighting, tile, misc accessories: Home Depot has great prices to begin with but I learned that if you spend over a certain amount you may qualify for contractor pricing. So I made a huge list of everything we needed from doors, lumber, tile, lighting, etc and made one gigantic purchase. Savings: ? $600.

Michelle Shower Before

Michlle Shower After

Closet: Every gal knows how important a great closet is. I received several quotes from closet companies which were outrageous. In the end, we used the Ikea Pax system which was really customizable and for a fraction of the cost. Savings: $1,000

Michelle Closet Before

Michlle Closet After

Michlle Closet Detail

Tile labor: Our plan was to tackle installing the tile ourselves. After doing a whole house we ran out of steam and patience. Unfortunately, labor costs more than the product itself…ouch. All the quotes of the tile people were pretty comparable. We asked the sub contractor that we chose if he could come down on his price. We asked 25%, he countered with 15%. We knew very well 25% was wishful thinking but if we would have said 15%, he would have said 5%. (I also talked more about hiring the right sub-contractor in a post here). Savings: $600.

Michelle Front Door Before

Michelle Front Door After

Michelle Front Door Detail

Hardware and misc items: Many stores will have an annual “Friends and Family” month with up to a 25% discount on everything. I waited patiently (or rather impatiently) for these to hit then I made my purchases. Savings: $300.

Michelle Main Bath Before

Michelle Main Bath After

Thanks for sharing your moneys saving tips with us, Michelle! If any of you want to read (and see!) more about the makeovers shown in this post, check out Michelle’s posts on her Kitchen & Living & Dining Area, Main Bath & Closet, Entryway and Main Bath. She has tons of great photos and full source lists as well.

We’ve already got some other bloggers in mind to tap for some more budget-salvaging tips, but if you’ve got anyone you think would be great to feature, please let us know in the comments and I’ll drop them a line beg.

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As a little Friday bonus, here are four fun projects, chats, or questions going on over on the Forums. We also announced this week’s giveaway winners, so you can click here (and scroll down to the Rafflecopter box) to see if it’s you.

ForumFoursome
Forum Closet Doors Forum Blog Photo Tips Forum Sharpie Makeover Forum White Walls Trim
by WifeInProgress by GilitC by The_Makerista by juliejm
ForumFourFooter

Comments

  3. Wendy @ New Moms Talk says

    Thank you for this!

    We close on a house next week that sits on almost .75 acres with three greenhouses and an outbuilding. (Plus the two ponds which need to go away!)

    While I’ve always been incredibly good at finding a deal (2 years of baby clothes in great condition and a brand new crib for free on Craigs List), being frugal and smart with house renos is a new area of learning for me.

    Especially key if we’re going to transform 2 of the greenhouses into play spaces and/or a green cottage.

    Reply

  4. Jan says

    Not sure I’d want my clothes hanging right next to a steamy shower stall … hope she has a good ventilation system in there.

    Reply

  6. Erin says

    WOW…that house looks amazing. I’ve always known that a redo makes my house look much cleaner, but there’s nothing like old 70s gold transformed to white and gray to make it look completely fresh and clean. She’s a brave mama having that much white with “4 men” in her life. I went with gray couches instead of white. Too many grubby hands to worry about.

    Reply

  10. Peggy McKee says

    Michelle’s post was very upbeat and cute, but I would have been more interested in things like a breakout of costs of original scope of work compared with revised.

    Also is the house now for sale? What’s the expected profit?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I love the idea of asking bloggers in this series how much they went over budget on projects in the future, because that definitely happens! Perhaps Michelle will blog about some additional money stuff for ya. I don’t believe her house is for sale now though – she’s currently working on a basement makeover of epic proportions!

      xo
      s

    • emma says

      Love the new series, but I also I agree. We’re *thinking* about a kitchen/mudroom reno and while I know an easy place to start would be contractor bids I don’t even know a ballpark of what the renovation would be. I’d love to see more about labor costs/unexpected costs/how bloggers save (1 savings pot, or multiple for each project?). Maybe your new home project contractor would be helpful to weigh in!

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That’s a great idea! I’ll have to tap our showhouse builder for info! He does kitchens all the time. From personal experience, our first kitchen was about 2K more than we expected (we thought it would be around 15K and ended up at 17K) and our second kitchen reno was 3K less than we budgeted for (we thought it would be around 10K and it was under 7). Of course we DIYed a ton more in our second house (and also didn’t replace the cabinets or go for granite counters) so a lot of the price difference between the two projects was just the difference in materials and labor (hiring more out and more expensive materials definitely add up to more than affordable options and doing things yourself). Hope it helps!

      xo
      s

  11. Amber says

    LOVE this! Thank you for these secrets! And…I’m obsessed with the white and gray throughout her house. We are about to move (like, tomorrow!) and we painted almost the entire hosue white and everyone kind of thinks we are crazy….

    Y’all are the best!

    Thanks, again!
    -Amber

    Reply

  12. Jessica says

    The renovation is gorgeous and I like that while she saved a lot of money in many different areas her stuff isn’t cheap.

    I’d be VERY curious to know how all the white works about with 3 boys (and a husband)! Do the kids really play in that all white living room?!

    Reply

  13. Lynn @ Our Useful Hands says

    What a purdy little house she’s got going on. I love tips on how to save moolah when renovating because Lord knows we need it! (Did I mention we have a leak in our roof that is wreaking havoc on our drywall? Yep…it’s true.) I’m excited for these new features. Have a great weekend guys.

    My best, Lynn
    *Oooo guess who’s flipping out because a new Habitat ReStore is opening up not even 4 minutes from my house? Who’s gonna save gas now? This gal.

    Reply

  15. Erin @ The Impatient Gardener says

    These are such good tips, some of which we used ourselves (particularly the cabinet maker one. We worked with a local cabinet maker in our kitchen and for the built ins in our bedroom and we got custom cabinets for an amazing price).

    A few other money savers for us: we switched to a floating click bamboo floor so we could install it ourselves (now that I’ve read your tutorial I think we could have done nail down flooring too) saving $3,000 on installation. I planned out our projects months in advance and knew what I had to buy so I scoured the Internet for sales to buy then.

    And I bought everything I could through ebates, which is a site that gives you cash back for shopping on sites through their site. Since I was buying the stuff anyway, this was just gravy. I think we probably got about $400 or more back just on house project purchases online.

    Reply

  16. Heidi says

    I would love to give some budgeting/construction saving tips. We were going to build a one car garage in our backyard as a workshop but got one for FREE from our neighbor. It still took $2,000 to put a roof and siding on it but it would have cost us well over $5,000 to build it new. We also have an AMAZING basement that my husband remodeled by himself. He even milled all of the trim!

    http://www.krusesworkshop.blogspot.com/

    Reply

  17. Cora says

    I was listening to my favorite radio morning show earlier this month and one of the topics they talked about was getting things for a fraction of the price. People called in from retail stores, home improvement stores etc and basically gave instruction on how to haggle with the sales people. Often times it’s about saying that you are willing to go somewhere else! This house is beautiful and it’s truly amazing on how much money was saved!

    Reply

    • Sandra T says

      Now granted this was local to me (south NJ), but my husband got a PC Richards’ salesman to match Best Buy’s price on a stove just so my husband would NOT buy it from Best Buy. He even wrote it that way on our receipt! That’s still funny to me

  19. GreenInOC says

    There must be some tomfoolery going on – no way are the before and afters from the same house!! The transformation is amazing!

    I know we’re not playing this game but my favorite part as the address in the tile (by the front door)!

    Okay, back to the money – I think her finding the just turned solo cabinet maker was probably the best in my book.

    Reply

  20. Alison says

    The queens of frugal are East Coast Creative of the Knock It Off show. So much inspiration out there, you can find plenty. That’s one more day of less “you” content to have to write about.

    Reply

  21. Sarah says

    Happy Friday!! Just a heads up that your blog often shows up on Blog Lovin minutes before it shows up on your actual website. Obviously not a big deal, but kind of strange. Thought I’d let you know.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Sarah! It does that on Facebook too. It’s a weird cache-ing issue (depends on your computer how long it takes to show up since every computer sets itself to re-cache every ___ amount of minutes, but if you clear your cache/cookies/data it’ll pop right up).

      xo
      s

    • YoungHouseLove says

      One of our friends got all of her new house fixtures from Overstock and said the savings were amazing! So good to hear it from someone else too! It’s amazing they were cheaper than the builder’s prices.

      xo
      s

  27. heather says

    I really like this idea for a series of posts from you guys. We’ll need new appliances eventually and it’s nice to see how other people made it happen. Those things can get pricey!

    Reply

    • Heidi S says

      For my appliances, Best Buy has lists online under each store’s page for open-box appliances. Open box appliances are typically 30% off of the new appliances- so if you wait until the “new-in-box” appliances go on sale (25-30% off), the open box appliances are 30% off of the sale price. So a $1000 stove-30%-30% = $490 :) Plus Best Buy warranties are based off the sales price, not the MSRP and replace an open box/sale item with brand new if you need it.

  28. Erica says

    I really like this series idea! It is a great way to learn tips, get inspired, and meet new bloggers. Thank you for sharing your space!

    Reply

  29. heather says

    The one thing I’ve been doing is watching sale sites, and I know a local store that will honor ANY price including online (so they say). The stove I want is almost 1,000 less online than in their store so let’s see if it holds when the time comes!

    This post definitely brought to light my biggest struggle blog wise — reporting costs. The L.L. Bean husband has a magical way of having things fall into his lap for free (often with a lot of physical labor to uninstall, haul home, etc., but the item is still free at the end) because he’s always helping people; that, and he can build anything, often from lumber he or someone in the family milled. I literally DO NOT understand how the universe works when it comes to that guy – not a complaint, more like purely being baffled. It also makes it VERY hard to blog about. I can never decide if people want to hear about getting things like these, or if it sounds pretentious (which we are not, at all, in any sense of the word).

    Reply

    • JG says

      Personally I *love* to hear about everything you and your husband get for free Heather! :) Slightly jealous sometimes, but always super appreciative! ;)

      It is, in a very real way, another way of doing a renovation, and should be out there! (Much of our recent bathroom renovation items I can point to and say, “free”, “sidewalk find”, “yard sale”, “incredible online deal”, etc!) I am sure your husband attracts great things like those because he is putting out the good energy and open to accepting them and is at the right time at the right place! Sometimes I think being on the lookout for things (and being willing to look in unusual non-store places) and looking like someone to whom one can offer free “cast-offs” is half the magic!

  30. Kelly says

    Thanks for more money saving tips.

    I got the tile that I wanted for my bathroom floor much cheaper from tips that you and Katie Bower have shared.

    I wanted 2″ marble hex tile. It’s a smaller bath, so I thought I would splurge. The Tile Shop had what I wanted for $14.99/sq foot. I saw the same tile online for 9.99/sq foot and asked if they would match it. (Ok, I actually made my husband do this part). They matched the price and have been awesome about making sure all the sheets that we ordered were consistent color-wise.

    I would have never thought to ask for a discount if I hadn’t heard that you guys have done a similar thing. The Tile Shop totally rocks. We will definitely be returning when we next need tile.

    Thanks for the wonderful ideas! Love the blog!

    Reply

  31. Tiffany says

    Love, love, love the foyer tile with the numbers.

    Another money saving tip we used when we finished our basement. Shop, shop,and shop again for the best price on something. Lowe’s will beat a competitor’s price by 10%; find the best price somewhere and take that price to Lowe’s to save even 10% more.

    Reply

  36. Ginny @ Goofy Monkeys says

    A whole house renovation sounds like a dream & a nightmare rolled into one! The results look gorgeous though!

    Thanks for sharing all your tips!

    DIY-ing is definitely the biggest savings, along with selling furnishings and/or appliances you no longer need. Also looking for off-the-beaten path (rather than swanky downtown showrooms) for materials. There’s big overhead you’re paying for when you go to a designer tile showroom versus a smaller local supply house.

    Reply

  37. Izzy says

    Love this series! Jenny from Little Green Notebook always blows me away with the gorgeous room she designs on the cheap. I’m sure she’s on your radar too :)

    Reply

  40. GG says

    I’d love to see if you could get Thrifty Little Blog to post for you, she hasn’t posted in ages and I loved her frugal tips.

    Reply

  41. Jane says

    Ok everyone involved in this post and of course this lovely website is awesome! Her home is fantasmagorgeousoo (fan taz ma gorge eo soo)!! How does she keep her whites so bright? I will not even allow white bed sheets and it is only this lady, one dude, and a fat orange cat!!!!!

    Reply

  42. Gabbi @ Retro Ranch Reno says

    I absolutely swoon over her home! And love that she saved money while transforming it, to boot! We definitely had to be crazy budget conscious when we re-did our ranch, and I employed as many saving tactics as I could to keep us on track! So fun to see how other did it too! :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks for the suggestion, Julie! I definitely thought about directly asking for reno costs, I just didn’t know if every blogger would feel comfortable sharing those (we’ve done budget breakdowns for all of our gut jobs, but not every blogger bares all on that subject). We also wondered if learning how people save loot would be more universal (tips everyone could apply to their renos) rather than hearing how much one person’s kitchen makeover was (unless your room is exactly the same square footage and has plumbing/electrical in the same place it’ll probably vary a lot anyway). Perhaps I can ask future bloggers if they’d like to share total costs as well as money saving tips, and they can if they’d like – or just talk in general “how we saved 1K here and there” terms, which we still think can be interesting & useful to many people.

      xo
      s

  44. Lindsay says

    That is an incredible transformation… I do have a question for the homeowner community… And this only comes because of our profession. My husband is a general contractor and it irks me when people talk laborer s down on their price. Especially when they say all the bids were comparable… I understand it is the laborers choice to accept the bid or not, but like all sometimes with self employed you don’t know where your next Job will come from so you can’t risk passing it up. And 15-25% wow! That leaves no buffer! If there is an error who is going to cover the cost that would have been in that 15%? When you go to work do people ask you to do your job for 25% less? Do you think you are getting someone’s best product when they are giving you a discounted price? Not that I think anyone would do a crummy job on purpose, but they need to get in and out with your job as fast as they can and move onto a job that is profitable. We all want to retire, care for our families, maybe take a vacation but most importantly save for an emergency. When you don’t pay a skilled laborer who has company overhead, insurance to pay, tools to upkeep, wear and tear on their bodies, how important is that savings for you compared to the laborer? Just curious what thoughts are? And obviously I ask as I continue on this journey of being self employed!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Great question and definitely something to think about! I think many people assume that first bids might be raised slightly in anticipation of negotiations, which has been true many times in our experience (ex: a contractor might shoot high and say “I can do it for 1K” but they would actually do it for $800, they’re just padding the price so there’s negotiation wiggle room and then the homeowner says “how about $800?” and they say “Done!” and happily accept the job). I also think I generally assume (and I hope not wrongly) that if a homeowner negotiates a price with a contractor, and they agree on a certain price, the contractor wouldn’t agree to that if they weren’t going to be making enough of a profit to take on the job and make it worthwhile. The person estimating the job has the final word (either “yes, I’ll do it for X”, or “no, I can’t do it for X”), so it feels like they control the bid. Homeowners get to choose whether to use someone or not based on their bid, but they can’t make anyone do a job for any less than they’re willing to accept. Also, John and I love re-hiring someone if we have a good experience (like our electrician or our tree guy for example) so over the years they’ve earned so much more work/money thanks to doing such a great job, which keeps us coming back and recommending them to others.

      xo,
      s

    • Lindsay says

      Sorry not sure how to reply to you and not myself. Ha! Yeah I guess there are all sorts of way to run a business. And it’s something we will have to think about. We try to give a pretty precise bid with a little buffer for worst case scenario. If we didnt have that buffer we would lose money for what is an unforeseen event. So assuming someone marks up there price makes me wary. Not many contractors I know beef up the price knowing they will get low balled. And people confuse continuous work with profitable work. Not many people want work to work, but work to be profitable. Repeat work is incredible and helps us feel validated, but we believe we get repeat work because our bids are fair and give us room to do phenomenal work. And come back if there are any discrepancies. Again, just trying to see what people think. Thanks!

    • Sally G says

      “When you don’t pay a skilled laborer who has company overhead, insurance to pay, tools to upkeep, wear and tear on their bodies, how important is that savings for you compared to the laborer?” It’s all about perspective, I guess. It seems (there is A LOT of discussion about this in my community) that people have gone from this perspective of working to take care of their family and themselves… to expecting other people to make decisions to that end. The reason people are trying to save money on projects is so they can pay their own insurance, maintain their homes, and save money for their own emergencies. Whose claim is more valid? And that’s where it gets tricky. I see why asking someone for a better price on a bid would be a hard thing to swallow as it’s where your income stream starts… but everyone is just trying to do the same thing. My Mom’s house burned down last year and unfortunately her policy had not been updated since the 1980s. (Very much a fault on her end.) She has a very limited budget to work with on the replacement of her home. She is in her 60s, has no retirement, and very little savings. Again, her fault. She just hasn’t ever been “a planner”, bless her heart. :) All this said, in this situation, she is really trying to get the most done for the least amount of money and she isn’t an expert so she doesn’t know all the ins and outs of contracting, etc. She doesn’t know about cutting things too close, and margin for error, etc. She’s going to need to ask the question, “Is that your best price?” when reviewing bids to re-build her house. She’s not trying to put anyone out on the street, she’s just trying to get back to living in a house. I hope that the contractor will understand. And I hope that my mom will also understand when the contractor says, “I just can’t do it for that price.” If she likes the contractor and they can figure out some design changes, maybe they can move forward. That’s the beauty of contracts. Both parties agree, because both parties believe that it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.

    • Lindsay says

      @SallyG Absolutely! All sorts of ways to see this. But you statement about wanting someone who has a home like the one featured today that is dated and wants new, to me that seems like an extra. Absolutely acceptable and if people didn’t do that a lot of people would be without work. But like I said before do you go to work and people say will you take 25% off today? You are asking for a deal on your “extra” spending. So your discount is my main income…. So you want to have money to retire… Maybe don’t do an extravagant tile. Or DIY… And I can’t speak for everybody. Obviously like YHL said they think some people go in with a high bid knowing they will be bartered with. And we run our company when people ask for a discount we just say no and go our seperate way. More often than not we get a return call to come do the work at our price, because we are fair and have refined our skill. But always looking into how to make the most of our company. And if we need to go in with a high bid so people can feel we give them a deal, then maybe it’s something we look into…

    • mp says

      Lindsay, I definitely see your point. I paid a high price when I hired the first contractor I could get hold of when I bought this house — no license, crappy work, universal revulsion in the community. My mother, who’s been doing much-needed renovations on her home of 40 years, hired a contractor who charges a lot for one day … but he’s licensed, fully insured, and pays his employees a decent wage along with benefits. She sees it as a worthwhile investment, and my accounting professor (and I) see it as the only ethical decision.

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Great point MP! Licensed and fully ensured with fair treatment of their workers is a must for us – although the latter is usually only easy to tell after working with someone. That’s completely why we love our tree guy and our electrician so much – they’re both family businesses who clearly love working together and have all of their ducks in a row with the BBB. Sometimes you can get that “gut” feeling when you’re getting estimates if someone is talking about “their guys” doing it all but they won’t even be on site – I like the person I talked about the job with to be there in some capacity.

      xo
      s

    • Jenny says

      We had some electrical work done by a company that goofed up on their estimate and it was a big pain for us…I think all these things really depend on how the contractor chooses to operate.

      In our case it was the installation of a few fans (with new venting to the outside) and replacing some light fixtures. We got several quotes and went with not the lowest but one of the lower ones, and the company owner seemed good. The fans they chose turned out to not work well (they hadn’t worked with the brand before) and needed to be replaced — the crew guys agreed with us that they were way too loud to be working right. But it took two months and lots of ignored calls to get them out to fix it. The crew head eventually said, when he did show up, that the price wasn’t covering the work and that’s why they were being such a pain about it.

      I felt that this was totally unfair — they chose to quote that price based on their guess of the right price plus a buffer, and got it wrong. I’m sympathetic, but being a pain about the work didn’t seem like the right response. We certainly won’t work with them again (in fact right now I’m looking for a new electrical contractor for some other work).

      That said, I keep meaning to file a bad review with someone (BBB or Angie’s List) and haven’t gotten to it…so shame on me.

  46. Rachel says

    What a beautiful house, I love all the white – and great money saving tips. For a UK perspective a great blog is Lulastic and the Hippyshake (www.lulastic.co.uk) where they are experts at getting beautiful things for a bargain or for free! Full disclosure, it is my cousins blog but family loyalty aside it is worth checking out.

    Reply

  48. Kathy says

    Love 4men1lady, I have followed her since it was 3 men! ha

    Do you know Kristin Jackson of Hunted Interior?
    I found her by following Sarah Dorsey designs. Both remind me of your style. Would love to see them both in this feature! Also ditto all those mentioned above, all some of my favorite blogs.

    Reply

  50. Dino says

    I guess I have a bit of a problem here with the “outrageous” comment around having custom closets built – Ikea is cheaper, in part, because they relentlessly pressure manufacturers to reduce costs, resulting in very low wages for employees and often the eventual close of the manufacturer after they’ve been unable to reduce costs any further.

    If what you are looking for is ultra-cheap with no ethical quandry for how you get it, that’s fine, but I guess it’s sad when paying a livable wage to local construction is considered “outrageous.”

    This to me is very different from DIY – it’s just “Do At the Lowest Cost to Me” which is not very community-oriented.

    Reply

    • Lynne says

      This is a very good point – and sadly a shuttered factory isn’t even the worst case scenario. It was pressure from places like H&M for low cost goods that lead to the factory collapse in Bangladesh. Juggling frugality and conscientious consumerism is tough.

    • Lindsay says

      I totally agree! I left a comment above and wonder what your thoughts are on this. If its DIY or on sale AWESOME! Good for you…. But Do It At the Cost Lowest To Me is literally taking money out of my pocket so you can have exactly what you want and I can cover my cost!

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