A series of articles: how did we save up to 10% of the renovation budget by shopping online?
If you’ve visited the blog before, you know that my husband and I managed to save thousands of dollars by daring to buy home improvement items online, mainly from the Chinese shopping giant "Ali express". It all started from the plumbing fixtures, which we saw in the local hardware store but cost about 5 times what we allocated for it in the budget.
It was November, and the Chinese have a special holiday ("Singles' Day") where they have major discounts on many different items and we found plumbing fixtures practically equivalent to those mentioned before, in 1/5 of the price!! A crazy 80% discount.
At first I wasn’t sure I should recommend other to do the same, but after almost a year of constant usage I can surely say we made the right decision.
The excellent faucet in the picture has features that usually make it pricier, such as retractability that allows you to wash the entire sink, and two kinds of streams. The soap dispenser is helping to create a more minimalist and tidier working environment.
We also bought lighting fixtures that were incorporated in the overall design - two sets of cylinder spot lights, located above the sink and the stove, and a hanging rectangle light located in the center of the kitchen.
So how did we make sure the items we bought 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) an made sure someone from Israel already got the product and it matched the local piping type / electricity voltage levels.
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 sink, marble and cabinetry we've designed and bought locally due to the weight and size of the items. The faucet, soap dispenser and lighting fixtures were 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. Kitchen faucet – matte black.
Here's some example of the kitchen's products, after it started working :)
Want so advice with your renovation?