One person’s junk is another’s treasure

How much can we save building a house?

Thats the questions i had to keep reminding myself on a daily basis. When i saw things i wanted for our house in a store i had to go through a list of questions to myself.

1. Is this a want or a need?

2. Does this need to be brand new?

3. Can i source it cheaper?

Late in the evening we would spend a few hours in Trademe and facebook marketplace and see if we could sourse the items cheaper. We were lucky as we had a few contacts in demolition and we were able to go on sites before they started work to pull out things we wanted at a small cost.

Paying full price does have its advantages as it saves you time but i dont like to follow what everyone else is doing and i find new products these days are just not made to endure. I love old houses from the 1950s and 1960s so beimng able to scrounge around in houses that are about to be torn down for a new apartment block makes me feel like i can restoring a tiny part of our past.

I have scored the most amazing doors for our house. Old kauri hard wood beautifully made doors which we will make into bedroom doors. Yes thats rigth each bedroom door will have a thick heavy door.

Thats what makes this house so much more special because everything in it to build it has been sources and pulled out of the house by my husband and i. All those windows were carefully extracted and carried and then lifted to the truck and taken home to then lift them onto the container. We did that. No one helped us. We did is all by ourselves!