Building/decorating materials OFFERS?

Amanda_Cm

Hi there,
Let's share some OFFERS. If you spot something good and affordable, please share.
Where do you shop normally? What was the best deal you got on building/decorating materials?

We are just about to purchase our first home and we need to rip off everything and put our stamp on it.
The good thing is that partner is super handy carpenter so thinking about DIY most of the house ourself.
Have a lovely day/night/morning/afternoon.

Davesnave

People aren't going to get consistently excellent deals from the national DIY sheds, compared with how they'll do if they set up an account with local builders' merchants. That's what I found anyway.

There are national outlets, like Trade Point, but as I haven't used them, I can't comment on whether you'll be able to register with them. Others will know. I had no problems with local merchants, who were very helpful.

However, even with my local suppliers, I found that some were keenly priced in one area and hopeless in others, so a bit of research for everything is often called-for. Only a few weeks ago, I found one was offering drainage components at half the price of the other place....and so it goes on.

Some smaller merchants are also old-fashioned and incredibly bad at running web sites. As an example, one local merchant was listing a bath at nearly £600, but when I visited in person, the price miraculously dropped from this RRP to something much more sensible. We eventually arrived at a price just north of £350 and the sales guy even upgraded the fittings within that. Totally mad, but there you go.

Finally, there's transport. My local heavy-side yard will never charge me more than £10 for a drop, but if I can wait, they'll stick my stuff in with other people's and allow them to pay!

I'm not saying don't use Screwfix et al, because they can be good, especially for tools and fixings etc, but it's a huge subject and there just aren't enough hours in the day to get it right all the time.