As part of our low carbon build (see previous All things carbon blog post in March), when we’ve had options about products, we’ve tried to opt for the lower carbon/environmental impact products wherever we’ve been able to. For the non-construction elements of the build, sourcing unwanted or second hand fixtures and fittings has been a deliberate strategy – Facebook Marketplace, eBay plus local ‘Freebay’ local community groups have all been well utilised.
Sourcing this way has a double benefit: the only environmental impact of second hand products relates to transportation and any ‘upcycling’ needed; and it’s also saved a substantial amount of money (as long as you don’t add in £/hour of time spent trawling sites of course!). What it has generally enabled is for us to have higher quality products for the same or less cost than new.
Plumbing – The first focus was sourcing lots of the plumbing products. We opted for a new shower enclosure and shower tray for our ensuite, two new toilets, and a new bath. The vast majority of the rest of the fittings for both bathrooms and utility room then came from eBay or Facebook, including: ex-display Hans Grohe thermostatic shower for over the bath, thermostatic Hansgrohe shower mixer for our ensuite, second hand CP Hart basin, surplus brand new Crosswater basin taps, surplus brand new Hansgrohe fixed showerhead, second hand Duravit basin and butlers sink, second hand Perrin and Rowe taps for utility room.
Cost vs new was always substantially less than half the price – the CP Hart sink, for example, was exactly the same model as I installed in a previous house 20+ years ago. Now the cost of these news is a crazy £1000+, the taps alone £1500. So I was very happy to get a second hand version for £200, including the taps (which just needed new cartridges for £30). Likewise the ex-display thermostatic shower has an RRP of £920, so £200 felt like a pretty good deal to me!
Beds – All our beds are second hand. One of my nephews commented that he wouldn’t fancy a second hand bed that someone else had slept in, but when I pointed out that he stayed in lots of hotels and so slept in a lot of beds that hundreds of other people have slept in before, he did concede that he hadn’t thought about that! That said, of course I always source pretty carefully, and ideally get hold of one that’s been in a spare room previously so hasn’t had much use.
Again my rationale is simple: buying this way means that I can get hold of a top quality – usually Vispring – bed, which new would cost over £5,000, and generally end up paying less than £1000. The result that we have a much more comfortable, higher quality mattress and base (that will last much longer) than a new one for the same price.
Bed heads are another item that always surprise me how expensive they are to buy new. I looked initially at making my own from scratch, but new foam has recently become extremely expensive, so instead I’ve done a combination of buying second hand bedheads that will re-cover (and add additional padding) and also bought second hand foam mattress toppers and surplus upholstery foam to make others.
And for the bedding itself, top quality mattress covers, sheets, wool duvets, duvet covers and pillows have all also been sourced through Facebook.
Sofas – The next thing I needed to source were two sofas. After going round some shops, I’d narrowed down the styles (and brands) that I liked. I then – fortunately – measured the space we had, and realised that none of the very nice, comfy Loaf sofas I had put on my shortlist would fit! Then it was off once again to trawl through Facebook Marketplace, with a very specific list. It is truly amazing what people literally throw out because they decide one or two years on from redecorating that it’s time to change their paint colour again, and those almost brand new sofas really have to go. London is definitely the best place to source stuff, and I have been extremely fortunate that my sister has been willing to help – both collecting or doing initial recce for me.
I found the first second hand sofa.com sofa in London – relatively well worn but decided that it was good enough and meant that we wouldn’t need to be too precious about it (which definitely suits our style of living!). I then found a second sofa being given away for free, which was the smaller version of the same model. The only downside was that it needed to be re-covered. Cue discovering that the cost of labour alone for re-upholstering a sofa is more than £600, and then as you need over 10 metres of fabric even for a small sofa, this would add ££ even using the cheapest fabric (and hence why people tend to just chuck sofas out and buy new rather than re-covering). What to do? I discovered that we had the Oxford School of Upholstery on our doorstep, and they run week long courses where you take along your item and fabric and learn how to upholster. Tackling a sofa in just 4 days was slightly ambitious, but my sister agreed to do the course with me, and we had a really great week in July transforming our sofa – and certainly for me, becoming extremely excited about all the other things that I could re-upholster myself.
Kitchen – What to do about the kitchen had been vexing me for quite a long time. We knew the layout, as it’s a pretty simple area, with not very many base units in a u-shape. I really fancied the idea of getting hold of a second hand kitchen and upcycling it. However, the combination of finding the right design with exactly the right units and needing to transport it up to Ardnamurchan was slightly challenging.
The other option I’d thought about was to keep looking on Facebook marketplace for base cabinets (usually Howdens) that people had left over from their own new kitchen installations, gradually build up the collection and then source the doors separately (or new from Howdens). However, the logistics of collecting these and the fact that the carcasses themselves aren’t actually that expensive (relative to doors, drawers etc), meant that this idea was fairly quickly discarded.
Of course the ‘obvious’ option would be to simply source directly from Howdens in Fort William. I’ve had two Howdens kitchens and they’ve worked extremely well, but…. the idea just didn’t sit quite right with me or fill me with much joy! In addition, it was a pretty expensive option. Just as the time was getting closer for when I needed to make a decision, as luck would have it, a kitchen popped up on Facebook Marketplace, which had pretty much exactly the right units, solid wood doors that could be easily painted, and in the end the people I bought from threw in a new surplus Howdens base unit and a pretty new decent kitchen tap. £200 later, plus the cost of a morning’s van hire, and the kitchen was ours. Happy days! It’s absolutely not perfect – but then I started really looking at the cupboards and drawers we have in our current kitchen and realised they were in fact a lot tattier than the kitchen I’d bought, but you just don’t see the vast majority of the ‘tattiness’ in daily use.
So for now the base unit carcasses themselves work perfectly in the space, and I will learn how to adjust door hinges, put soft close fixings on the drawers, and gradually upgrade the doors and handles. We’ll also invest in a high quality quartz worktop – but the free off-cuts of chipboard I scavenged will work fine as a temporary worktop for now.
For appliances, for Passivhaus (and my own preference) we need the most energy efficient models of everything – the new A classification wherever possible. Fortunately I discovered the Miele outlet shop, which publishes a list every day of the ‘seconds’ products they have available. Prices are generally around 60% of the new price, and even better they offer free delivery, even to Ardnamurchan. Dishwasher, washing machine, oven and hob were all sourced this way – I just waited until exactly the right models came up. Had to go for a new fridge freezer, and here decided that the energy saving between the LG A energy classification model and the very similar B model didn’t justify the 40% additional price. The B version is still massively more energy efficient than any fridge freezer I’ve had previously and also much better than vast majority of others on the market.
I guess lots of people get a lot of enjoyment from going round the shops, selecting exactly the product they want, and getting it home in shiny new packaging. To be honest, this was probably me in the past. But now, aside from really disliking shopping, I actually get much more enjoyment from finding a used product, often slightly imperfect, that saves waste and also money, and quite often has a story to tell.