How I Paid For Our Home Improvements

We've done a lot so far this year upgrading and updating five almost six spaces so far.  I thought I would share with you how I managed to pay for all of this, keeping the cost to a thrifty minimum.  I got creative!

To begin with I became a wee bit of a gift card hoarder in the past two years.  Every year at Christmas I receive a $200 Visa gift card from my work.  I didn't spend the last two I received and kept them tucked away.  My work also offers incentives to earn $25 gift cards and every time they did I took them up on it and tucked those away.  Our insurance company also offers a $50 gift card each year if you take their online health education classes and I've done it every year.  This year and last year I added that to the stash (haven't spent this year's yet).  And lastly I used my rewards points from my credit card to get some Home Depot gift cards.

First was our kitchen with some cabinet reconfiguring, a new ductless range hood (Lowes gift card) and fresh paint on the cabinetry and the walls.  I used wood and supplies I already had in my garage so I didn't need to buy a whole lot to complete this mini renovation.  It took us two weekends and we were excited and ready to move on to our next project which was our entryway.  It was pretty battered up but we did it up proud by hanging some beadboard textured wallpaper (Amazon) and giving the walls, ceiling and doors a couple coats of paint.  I also updated the doorknob on the pantry.  We completed that project in one weekend and moved on.

Kitchen			Entryway
Cabinet paint	23.00		Wall paint (white)	-
Range hood	44.98		Primer	-
Wall paint (white)	34.98		Wallpaper	25.00
Primer	-		Door Knob	5.98
Roller	4.98		Roller	-
Paint tray	1.87		Sponge brushes (2)	-
Paint tray liner	0.98		Spackle	-
Sponge brushes (4)	3.56		Paint tray	1.87
Spackle	-
				32.85
Visa Gift Card	(25.00)
Home Depot Gift Card	(25.00)		Total	34.82
Lowes Gift Card	(44.98)
Sub total	19.37
Total	20.53

Our next project was to transform our plain and simple dining room space and I think we did that and more.  I really love how this turned out by using leftover beadboard wallpaper to make wainscoting and adding a simple chair rail using trim I had in the garage (FREE WOOD bin near work).  We painted the ceiling, all of the trim and the bead board white and the wall above with gray paint.  Gorgeous!  I moved the light from my bedroom to replace the old dated ceiling fan that was over the table and bought a new light fixture to replace the one in my bedroom.

The living room was next on the list.  We added new trim (had it in the garage) to the door, trim to the living room window (FREE WOOD bin near work) a new entry way (using tiles I had leftover from the kitchen, entry and laundry room) painted the ceiling and all of the trim white and used the gray paint to spruce up the walls.  Lastly we replaced the old ratty carpet with carpet tiles.  It was an amazing transformation.

Dining Room			Living Room/Hallway
Wall paint (gray)	30.98		Wall paint (white)	30.98
Wall paint (white)	-		Wall paint (gray)	-
Wallpaper	25.00		Roller handle	4.98
Trim	-		Roller	4.98
Liquid Nails	-		Paint tray liner (1)	0.98
Painters caulk	-		Carpet	505.38
Roller	-		Sponge brushes (2)	1.78
Light Fixture	59.97		Paint tray set (floor)	5.46
Baseboard heater	40.98		Outlet	1.19
			Paint - floor	13.00
			Trim - bullseye (2)	2.98
Home Depot Gift Card	(50.00)		Molding	-
Visa Gift Card	(59.97)
Sub total	46.96		Visa Gift Card	(66.33)
Total	49.78		Sub total	505.38
			Total	535.70

I bought the carpet from Home Depot online and used my PayPal credit account to pay for it.  Every month I make a good sized payment on that account and as long as I finish paying for it within six months I will accrue no interest.  That is the plan too!

The hallway hasn't been completed yet, but I have everything I need to do the job.  And the stairway project is still a work in progress too.  All I need now is a little more time in my day and if anyone knows where I can find some let me know!

I wanted to share this with you to show you that with a little creativity and a lot of patience you can do big things with not a lot of money.  FREE WOOD bins are everywhere, you just have to look for them.  Craigslist is a great place to find free and low priced items.  Recycling centers and thrift stores too.  New construction sites have trash piles and if you ask they are usually more than happy for you to haul off their junk so they don't have to pay someone to do it for them.  What's the worst that can happen?  They say NO and chase you off with a stick?  So what?  Then you can call them a really not nice name once you are safely locked in your car and driving away.  But seriously, that rarely ever, almost never happens.

Patience is another key.  When we moved back into our home I desperately wanted to do all of this right away, but the reality was I didn't have enough time or enough money to do that.  So I worked on what I could and slowly, but surely I got it done.  The little things add up.  First I scrubbed the place clean and hauled off all the garbage, we started cleaning up and repairing the yard, we made over our flowerbeds, repaired the damaged door, replaced the broken light fixtures and updated some old ones, replaced the damaged gate, repaired the kitchen backsplash, spackled the dings and painted the scuffs with primer, fixed the missing trim piece in the kitchen, fixed the broken closet door, replaced busted fence posts, and so on and so on.  In the meantime I collected trim and wood, I looked at Pinterest and YouTube for ideas, I thought a lot about what I wanted and created a vision of my home that made me really happy.  And I collected gift cards.

And then I got busy.

Anything is possible.  Eventually we get there.

Have I mentioned we are going to Disneyland? 😉