Mom Luck

I'm extremely fortunate to have a Mom who is into architecture and interior design.  Through the years, she's been collecting a lot of old wood, materials and furnitures and using them in her projects.  These projects are mainly in our home as well as some properties she's fixed up herself.  In trying to save every penny for my first renovation project, I looked around her storehouse of stuff and thingamajigs.  I got leftover tiles -- those that were mostly white and mixed them with bargain tiles that I had to purchase to complete the required bathroom area. 

There were also leftover curtain and upholstery materials that were too pretty to pass up.  The occupants of this apartment will be a mother and her two young daughters so I thought these prints would be perfect for them.  From the curtain pattern, we could also derive the colors of the rooms, doors and accent on the walls.   I'm also doubly lucky that Nanette in our house knows how to sew and she's sewing up the curtains for free.  

I'm putting on Excel all the expenses including putting value on the items which I got for "free" which is quite considerable because of my mother's treasured stash.  So far I'm on budget at P49,000 (actual + projected) with the freebies amounting to around P25,000.

Yesterday, I went to Wilcon and Home Depot and was surprised how much curtain rods cost.  There were wooden and stainless steel types but they seemed to be overpriced.   I thought of having them made "for free" by my Mom's carpenter but then my Mom ingeniously suggested I can use old GI pipes that could easily be painted.   The "free" is in quotation marks because these are not actually free but paid for by Mom but passed on to me for "free."  What a super duper double triple blessing to have been born as my mother's daughter!