Where To Get Free Or Cheap Samples For Home Renovations

Just over a month ago we got the keys for our first proper house and we couldn’t have been happier. The first two weeks went by in a blur of building work and wallpaper stripping. But then we had to take a break due to self-isolating which was a huge hindrance in our plans. But it did give us time to make some decisions on the interior aspects of our house. We had lots of choices to make including colours, flooring and tiles for our en-suite. So I thought I’d talk through where to get free or cheap samples for home renovations. There are so many great companies out there who offer samples for free, or for minimal money.

To start off with we wanted to order some tiles. Mainly for our en-suite which would be done near the start of our renovations. We ordered a selection of tile samples from both Tile Mountain and Walls & Floors. Both companies had a great selection of tiles for all areas of the house. You can get 3 cut tiles for free per order and both me and Luke made orders to give us choice. The cut tiles are about the size you can see in the images. But you can also pay a small price to get a full-sized tile. So you want to see what this will look like.

For our en-suite, we’ve decided on these wood effect tiles from Tile Mountain for the flooring. And some grey gloss porcelain tiles (not pictured) for the walls. I knew from the offset I loved the starburst tiles from Walls & Floors and wanted them somewhere in our house. We’ve decided these will be the perfect flooring for our utility room when it’s built. I was so happy with the choice of free or cheap samples for home renovations when it came to tiles.

Next up was carpet choices

We’re having carpet everywhere upstairs (other than the bathroom/ en-suite) and in our living room downstairs. And we knew we wanted something really soft and squidgy on the feet with a good thickness. We ordered a selection of samples from Carpet Right and Online Carpets. We found it pretty easy to find places to get free or cheap samples for home renovations when it came to the carpet.

Pretty much every carpet site offered small samples and even though the samples are small you can really get an idea of the quality. We ordered quite a few different ones and some of them were so scratchy and thin that we instantly knew were no-nos. We think we’ve settled on the one above which is fluffy, soft and a beautiful grey colour.

There are a bunch of different types of carpets depending on the type of room you’re looking to renovate, so when ordering samples online, think about the desired effect you want and how much use you think it’s going to get. If you want a luxury, deep pile carpet, for instance, Carpet Warehouse recommend a dense Saxony style, which will feel incredibly soft and inviting underfoot – perfect for main bedroom or living room areas.

Free or cheap samples for home renovations – Wooden flooring

For wooden flooring, we actually only ordered samples from one supplier called; UK Flooring Direct. For us, it was more about the colouring as were quite particular on the colour. We started off going for oak and mid wood tones to be quite light. But then we decided to go for walnut doors to match the window surrounds so realised we needed the flooring to match. Luckily we found a few darker wood that we ordered a sample of.

It was quite easy to find free samples of wooden flooring as well and the ones we ordered were a really decent size. The samples were full width so you can properly see how they clip together which was great to see. The darker walnut wood flooring was slightly wider than the other samples we ordered. And as it’s going over quite a large area in our kitchen/ diner and my office that works really well for us.

Now onto paint colour choices

For us, paint samples were the hardest things to get as all the shops were shut due to Coronavirus. Usually, we’d have gone to B&Q looked at the colours and just picked up a handful of tester pots. But sadly that wasn’t an option. While tester pots are only a few pounds we knew we wanted a handful of options for each room and this would have worked out quite pricey. But Crown Paints do 5 painted sheets for £5.99 so we ordered a few of these so we could narrow down our colours which are above.

We have a light yellow for our spare bedroom, dusty pink for my office and third bedroom then a darker pinky/ purple for our bedroom. Then there’s a dark blue for Luke’s man cave and a brighter blue as an accent colour on the chimney breast in our living room. Then we have two greys, the lighter will be used to paint the inbuilt wardrobes in our bedroom. And the darker one will be our hallway and main living room colour. The one-room we’ve not found anything we like for is the kitchen/ diner. But that room will be one of the last to be completed so we’re not too worried.

Once we settled on colours we did then order sample pots of the ones we could to actually paint on the walls. Sadly a few of the shades we picked (the blues and greys) were part of the Elle by Crown collection which didn’t have samples. But once shops open we can go and have another look at them in the store.

Free or cheap samples for home renovations- Wallpaper samples

Then the final thing we did was order some wallpaper samples from Graham & Brown. We have three feature walls we want to paper. The purple is for the wall behind our bed in the master bedroom and it’s beautiful. The yellow design is for the wall behind the bed in our spare bedroom and it’s so bright and fun. Then the darker one with a gold geometric pattern is for a wall in Luke’s man cave.

The wallpaper samples were just £1 a sheet and the samples were enough to get a good idea of the design and quality. This paper may not be the cheapest paper you can get but it’s good quality paper and will last really well.

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