We are in the same boat, with a just slightly smaller house to build. The ideas I have so far are:
1. Fitting out the bedroom closets (two walk-in, two regular) ourselves, with existing furnishings and a minimum of inexpensive Home Depot or Ikea stuff to fill them out. Same with the pantry. If you're not 100% happy with the results, you can always upgrade to custom fittings in a few years when you have more cash...it won't cost extra like replacing your heating system or something would!
2. Do any painting you can, yourself
3. I've spent a LOT of time shopping around for the right bamboo flooring, and I've obtained a lot of samples to run scratch and dent tests on. Surprisingly, the best stuff isn't the most expensive. We will be buying from BuildDirect.com - they mail you free samples and their prices are great. A minimum amount is required to be purchased, but if you are doing a whole house that's no problem.
4. We are going to do all drawers in the kitchen lower cabinetry, and almost all will be deep, wide drawers to minimize the number (which reduces the cost). To make the best use of the depth, we will put some things normally stored in shallow drawers (like utensils, cutlery, scissors, etc.) in pots so they stand upright inside the drawers. You've probably seen pics here on Houzz of custom drawers that have this feature, but why not just do it yourself with inexpensive pots from the Dollar Store or something?
5. Shop, shop, shop around for windows. There is a manufacturer near where we are building (Greater Vancouver, BC) that makes quality windows for half the cost of most stores I've looked at. And they will sell direct!
6. Bathroom vanities - Chan's eStore, or Ikea. Really nice looking at half the cost or less of other stores.
That's all I can think of right now. Good luck to both of us!
Rachel
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Flooring
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