Not everything needs to be premium. That’s something I had to learn the hard way.
We decided to splurge on a bathroom vanity and then realized we barely had money left for the shower walls. That mistake forced us to rethink how to balance quality and cost.
Eventually we found a rhythm: spend more where you interact the most, and save where it’s mostly visual.
For instance, solid, high-quality cabinet doors made sense. But inside the cabinets, we used simpler shelving material. We chose a sturdy, mid-range floor and paired it with a less expensive baseboard trim. The result looks intentional, not cheap and everything holds up.
Renovation isn’t about buying the most expensive materials. It’s about choosing what matters most to your daily life.
Sometimes the smartest upgrade is putting money into what you touch, open, lean on, and walk across.
