I love shopping! All the stores, the clothes, the people, I get such a rush from it. So I thought shopping for our house would be the same thing. Well in some ways it was. The thrill of the purchase was still there and the thought that we were checking things off our long to do list was a relief. But it was the shock in how much things actually cost. Instead of spending 50$ on a dress we were spending 500$ on toilets. Don't get me wrong I love toilets just as much as the next person, but I just imagined all the outfits I could have bought for that price.
Our toilets were our first major purchase. Although we had no bathrooms to speak off, we couldn't pass up a good sale and off we went to Home Depot.
We were going to have 3 bathrooms in our house and we wanted to make sure we were buying the right toilets for each space. We wanted them to be Eco friendly, but also pretty.
So for the family bathroom, which would probably get the most use, we chose a dual flush, elongated toilet from American Standard.
For the powder room we wanted something a bit smaller, so this round bowled low flush toilet from Kholer was purchased. It was the prettiest of the ones on sale. Even when I'm buying toilets I go for what looks good!
We had a hard time deciding on our master. We wanted it all to make sure all the pieces matched, so we decided deal or deal we would wait on purchasing that one until we were more certain of what look we were going for.
Our next major purchase was a bit more expensive....OK allot more expensive, but one of the most important and biggest changes we were doing the the house. New windows and doors. Before we started the renovations we had an EcoEnergy Retrofit evaluation done on the house. Our home was tested for how energy efficient it was. It got a measly 2%. The inspector suggested we replace all the windows and doors in the house, as well as install a new furnace, heat pump and spray foam insulation.
So off we went to go window shopping. I envisioned beautiful Jeld-Wen wood windows, identical to the old ones to keep the look of the original house intact. Little did I know wooden windows are very expensive. Also we needed allot of windows. Replacing every window in the existing house and adding ones in the extension brought the total up to 35 windows. This was going to be more expensive then we thought.
So after looking at the budget we decided to go with Fenplest PVC shash windows. They looked like the old windows, were Energy Star and they were half the price of the wood ones. We were excited to get these bought as it meant one of our major purchases was now complete. We would just have to wait 2 months to receive them. Aww more waiting time.
The shopping spree did not stop there though. We also needed to buy 5 new doors. We again went with Fenplest for the 3 regular doors for the kicthen and office, and we bought a set of custom french doors for the extension. However when it came to the front door we were willing to spend a bit more. Seeing that we wanted to make the front entrance a focal point of the house we wanted to the door to be a bit of a wow factor. So we opted for a hand made wooden door, with a glass window surround. It cost a pretty penny, but we knew it was worth it. This door would take even longer than the other doors and windows and we wouldn't be seeing this baby until well into the New Year.
Our shopping spree ended here.....for the time being. Allot of money spent, but not much brought home.
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