Interiors: Supermarket savvy kitchen revamp

 
 

A couple of weeks ago I was set a challenge by Debt Free Direct to see if I could spruce up a room in my house using items from a supermarket, and then report back on how they fared in relation to their more expensive counterparts. I chose to give my kitchen a mini-makeover as now I’ve moved the sofa I spend a lot of time looking at the kitchen (we have an open plan kitchen/living room you see!) and it was a bit of a state. Why on earth I bought a hideous plastic bin when we moved in is beyond me. It is the bane of my life and every time I take a picture of Athena playing on the floor it’s hovering in the background annoying me.

Here’s the offending article. I wanted to get kitchen accessories that matched as nothing did before really, and was a collection of things we’d collected over the years. When we moved we needed a new kettle and chose a cream one retro style one, and then my mum got us a toaster to match, so I went with cream as a vague theme for my new bits and pieces. The FIRST thing I picked was a metal retro cream bin, it is so much nicer than our old plastic one and also was a fair amount cheaper than the ones I had been looking at that were brand names.Everything I chose is from Tesco, they have a huge range of home wares on their website, I was spoilt for choice!
The tea/coffee etc holders I chose came from the ‘Cooks Traditional’ range (you can view it all here) along with the tea-towels and the pastry board. I’ve seen these traditional style home-wares for over double what these cost in department stores, so was a bit worried about the quality. I clearly wasted my time worrying as they are made of solid stoneware and have wooden lids which fit with an air tight seal, so you can even lift them up by their lids without scattering tea bags all over the place. The glass worktop saver has 3 pastry recipes, plus the diameters printed on, perfect for rolling out pastry.

The mugs I just couldn’t resist, although I’m finding I am consuming a few more biscuits than is healthy because every time I make a cup of tea in these mugs it makes me want a biscuit (or three). There are so many amazing mugs out there, and some that I’ve had my eye on from a certain shall-remain-nameless store (rhymes with ‘vexed’) for a while, but at around a quarter of the price for a proper bone china mug (that can be dishwashed, thank heavens!) I decided these were the ones for me!

With a young baby our disposable income has severely diminished, and even if I do go back to work all the money we earn will be spent on childcare/food/petrol etc so we’ll need to save wherever we can. After doing a lot of research on what sorts of things you can get from supermarkets (actually crashed my laptop with the amount of windows I had open at one point!) I am really impressed. I’m already a big fan of clothing ranges from supermarkets (Sainsbury’s and Asda especially) and I am lucky enough to have a big store of the three major supermarkets near me. The fact that you can pick up your food shop, a new outfit for everyone in the family AND mugs/a candle holder/duvet/toys etc all in one trip is a no brainer!
The quality of everything I ordered can’t be faulted at all and quite often things come from the same originating supplier but get a price increase depending on which shop shelves they’re sat on! And if you wanted to be completely blunt, beggars cant be choosers, which is a good thing as the choice available from supermarket retailers really can’t be beaten!
If you’re interested in living more frugally then take a look at the Making Money Go Further blog from Debt Free Direct as it has a lot of useful money saving tips.
What else do you buy along with your food shop? Any amazing bargains to share?
This post was written in collaboration with Debt Free Direct, who supplied me with my supermarket bargains to enable me to write this post. All words and opinions are my own.

2 thoughts on “Interiors: Supermarket savvy kitchen revamp

  1. Love those mugs – I was admiring them as I walked round Tesco’s the other day in fact, but we already have far too many and neither of us are tea drinkers! It’s a useful reminder of what a change small touches can make 🙂

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