Bavli Express - Save Money in Living Room Renovations

A series of articles: how did we save up to 10% of the renovation budget by shopping online?

The living room, containing multiple items bought on “Ali express”. Links to purchase available at the end of the article. Photography: Itay Benit

For the returning readers, this is the 2nd piece in a series of articles about saving by daring to buy online.

Like most couples, we were very budget-oriented while approaching our first renovation project. As a young architect I saw this project as an opportunity to showcase my design abilities and to have the end result as my “business card”. It all sounds perfect up untill this point, right? We felt a bit discouraged when we went for the first visit in the local furniture and home styling stores looking for those items that have that "homey" feeling - like pillows and decorative pieces, but every item we liked was way off our budget.

A view from the hall to the living room, containing multiple items bought on “Ali express”. Links to purchase available at the end of the article. Photography: Itay Benit.**

Thankfully, I’m an experienced online-shopper (not to say a shopaholic) so I suggested we apply the online shopping methods to this situation as well, with a few “upgrades”. we managed to save thousands of dollars by daring to buy home styling items online, mainly from the Chinese shopping giant "Ali express”. Luckily, It was November, and the Chinese have a special holiday ("Singles' Day") where they have major discounts on many different items and we found home styling items practically equivalent to those mentioned before, in 1/5 of the price!!

The living room, containing multiple items bought on “Ali express”. Links to purchase available at the end of the article. Photography: Itay Benit

So how did we make sure the items we buy are high quality?

Up to that point I mostly bought inexpensive items (up to 10$), and now I had to develop a better verification process. I looked into items which had a lot of positive feedback (preferably ones with pictures).

I've also perfected my browsing method, if I looked for a specific style and didn’t find exactly what I wanted I looked into similar ones' sellers and usually there I found what I was looking for. Slowly but surely, I created a collection of stores, offering the styles I liked.

Usually the first thing people ask when they hear about it is did we order EVERYTHING from Ali Express? The answer to that is, of course, no 😊

We've ordered items that were worthwhile ordering- shipping weight and cost wise. For example, the sofas, dinning table bought locally due to the weight and size of the items. The faucet, soap dispenser and lighting fixtures we bought online due to the extremely cheaper prices. I confirmed with my contractor, electrician and plumber that each one of the items is of high quality and good to go, before installing them.

And here are the links to purchase - click on the items' name to a direct link to the seller I bought from:

1. Track lights rails

2. Track lights spot lights

3. Cylindric light fixtures

4. Nordic style pillow case

5. Curly Mongolian sheep fur pillow case

6. Faux fur pillow case

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