Thursday, 25 July 2013

A game of two halves!

As far as the best laid plans of mice and men go, this one has definitely gone awry! I had such noble intentions of doing the whole of the outsides of the house for nothing (mostly because I think I'm going to need the money for cafe contents!) but no matter how I tried, cardboard roof tiles just didn't look as good as the real tiles on my other properties. Against the lovely Richard Stacey individual bricks, it looked plain wrong.

OCD about frog tape. That'd be us!
So I eventually haggled a set of 500 plaster roof tiles down to £5.95. It's a decent compromise and means the external part of the house should look pretty impressive for any budget, let alone a running total of £35.95!

Kicking myself for not sticking to THE PLAN, I sulked my way through some of my bookmarks. Surely there had to be something out there that would save me from my spendthrift ways? And lo, there it was! Freecycle, and a lovely lady who gave me a load of Dulux tester pots for the inside of the cafe. As if that wasn't enough, I'm staking out 99p floral furniture on eBay.

Ikea was keen to chuck out the chintz, but I think a cunning bit of recovering and we could have some very stylish bits for the top floor. A great spot for a coffee and a gossip. Oh, go on then, cake too. You've twisted my arm and I need to put my feet up after all that bargain hunting. It's exhausting stuff!

Total spent: £35.95
Remaining: £64.05
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4 comments:

  1. Melanie26 July 2013 at 17:22

    I love the plaster tiles, I think they look so much nicer, much more real. I was so pleased with how my roof looked with them on.

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  2. Michaela26 July 2013 at 19:39

    They've arrived already! I'm impressed!

    Good to know that you rate them - of course, what I haven't got are tiles to do the ridge... Let's hope I can get a few of those cheaply too!

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    Replies
    1. Melanie27 July 2013 at 10:23

      Mine are the Minaco ones and I too need the ridge tiles, I never thought to order them at the time! I had a hard enough time trying to get the postage down on just the roof tiles. I ordered two bags worth and rather than combine postage they simply doubled the price of one bags p&p on ebay when their website p&p totted up postage depending on how much you spent. I was rather miffed and managed to haggle them down.

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    2. Michaela27 July 2013 at 17:46

      I did a bit of haggling too! Keeping costs down is a good thing!

      I did wonder if we could use some painted tile edging instead of ridge tiles. Going to see if we have any bits left over from when the shower was fitted, or see if B&Q have a tiny bit I can try. I THINK it might work and if it does, it's going to be lots cheaper. Having said that, it'll all be one strip rather than tiles - or I suppose I can cut them into small tiles. Hmmm. This has potential!

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