Tuesday 14 August 2012

DIY - tips from a pro TIGHT ASS!


The lovely Kirsty from the Unspoken conversations is here today to share some of her DIY tips. Do check out her blog where she unpacks some of the deeper unspoken issues and writes in such a beautiful way.
Enjoy...

Thank you to Lisa who has invited me over to her cute little blog today to share some of my money saving tips. My name is Kirsty and I'm a serial TIGHT ASS when it comes to renovating and saving money on purchases for bigger and better things like travel and catching up with loved ones.


This is me doing some DIY on the weekend! My partner thought that it was appropriate to add a paint stripe down my face!
The number one TIP IS....*drum roll*.

DIY.

Three little letters that will SAVE you SOOOO much. DIY. Do it yourself. I know that this can be disheartening. Omg – I don’t have time to do things myself. Surely it’s much easier to get someone else in to do it? I really can’t be bothered. BUT TRUST ME! It’s sooo worth it. Sure, paying someone else to complete a task for you is probably much more efficient BUT IT’S NOT COST EFFECTIVE and you don’t get the satisfaction of creating an imagine in your mind and seeing it come to life PLUS everyone loves the adrenaline that you get from scoring yourself a BARGAIN!

My partner and I have been renovating since October 2011. We started 2012 with three big goals in mind. To complete our outside area (with fans, lights, paving and all things fancy included), to turn our shed that was previously used by the last owners as a music studio in to a granny flat with an ensuite, and to paint inside.

Now that I think about it, we were being fairly optimistic time and money wise.

But guess what? It’s COMING to life! We’re doing it.

How? By just plodding along, being savvy with our money and doing things ourself.

We have learnt to save money by:

-          Visiting salvage yards for second hand goodies. It’s true, someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure. We have scored a bathroom window and a shower screen for $200! BARGAIN! Check out my blog post on salvage yards on my blog by clicking here.

-          Recycling material.  We have turned rocks into garden beds, bricks into garden edging, dirt piles into landscape design pieces, old timber into frames for the ensuite, and plants that we’d pulled up out the back into a new garden out the front.

-          Buying second hand items for sites like Gumtree. Mick and I scored two wine barrels from a winery for $200. They are awesome and are a real feature of our outside area. We are now searching gumtree for bar stools to place around the wine barrels for entertaining.

-          Doing the work ourselves. Nothing beats scraping back old paint and applying the new coats and seeing the HUGE difference that it makes. Nothing beats the feeling of accomplishment when you rip up the old vine that has wrapped itself around existing structures and planting new flowers and fruit trees. And nothing beats looking out of your window on a Monday morning know where your time and money has gone over the weekend.

Lisa’s blog has definitely inspired me to keep an eye out for garage sales as well for any furniture and bits and pieces that we might need.

We all know that money is precious. If you are smart with your purchases and don’t mind spending some time looking through websites and visiting salvage yards and putting in the extra mile to do the work yourself, than you will make your dollar stretch the extra mile and will truly appreciate the beauty in the things that you create.

For other money saving tips, check out my blog over at Unspoken Conversations.

Look after yourself and those around you,

Kirsty

Thanks for sharing Kirsty and don't forget to check out her blog: Unspoken conversations and also my guest post that I've done for today...I'm sharing some of my tips for DIY gifts. xx


No comments:

Post a Comment