Where to buy new lights, faucets, and tile for a house?

[reveriereptile]

My husband and me have been building a house since last year and been doing it out of pocket to avoid another loan. We have the frame of the house done, almost all the doors and windows in, and now are going to get ready to do the plumbing, heating, and electrical soon.

Since we have a almost 15 month old most of my help now is trying to find good prices while being a stay at home mom. My husband fell off a ladder and broke his foot so he can't really go with me to price shop or pick out items at the stores. We mostly just have a couple Lowes stores and some other small stores around to look at items. I don't trust a lot of sites online due to possible fraud.

After looking around online at different sites I noticed Ebay prices for light fixtures and faucets are a lot more cheaper than Lowes. Is it worth buying those type of things off Ebay if you buy new and from someone with good feedback? I seen a lot of items I liked but about half the cost. With the house coming out of pocket we want to save but have spent decent on some items that will save us money in the long run like the windows. We don't mind to much on buying a new faucet in a few years but I don't want to get something that will possibly leak or start a fire if it is a light fixture.

We are having a hard time finding tile and one problem I know about ordering that online is the color may look different. We were wanting to buy large 18-24" tiles since we are doing the whole house with it. We are putting in radiant in-floor heating is why. We loved some of the special order tiles in Lowes but they don't have price tags on any of them. I don't want to waste time flagging down someone to find out that they have a huge price tag. Does anyone know how much the tiles might cost? Are there any sites that are trustworthy to buy from that sale tile that might have samples that we could buy?

 

[herfrds]

Go look at some of the smaller Mom and Pop stores. If you go in and talk to them and tell them how much tile you need some of them will cut you a deal.
One place even told me that if I bought all my tile from them they would install it for free.
I went elsewhere because the prices were better even with paying for the install. Even though there was some wait time they would help cut the cost of freight by getting a large order together.
Look at the stuff that has been ordered then cancelled. You can get a good deal there too.

I bought our faucets from Lowes. Go look on Amazon too. Did not have very good luck on ebay.

Been building our new house for 4 years and I went to one place and they have worked with us on the price of everything from the tile to the carpet to the quartz counter tops we are looking at.

 

[reveriereptile]

I've went to a few small stores around but didn't find to much. There selections were very small. One place we just recently stopped doing business with. They deliver horrible quality lumber since my FIL's truck broke down and my husband broke his ankle a few weeks ago. My husband had to cram the lumber inside of his SUV and take it back with a hurt foot. They then only had a few boards that were picked through, the cashier was rude, and he heard from another worker that another person bought $10K worth of lumber for a new house and made them come take it all back due to the quality being so bad. We had other problems with them for other items to.

Most of the other stores around just don't really have much. I went to look at bathroom sinks to see if any had anything. They had only a few items and it was the same thing as Lowes but with a $60+ more on the price tag. There is one place that is about an hour away that the Amish love using and we did order our windows through them. We may contact them about some stuff.

 

[herfrds]

Yeah it depends upon how much they have to choose from.

Have you checked out Amazon? I got my sink from them. An apron front cast iron farmhouse sink.

I know what you mean about a poor store. I have one place I will never shop at again. I went in once alone and went to look at their kitchen cabinets, nobody would talk to me. Went in again with DH and they talked to us. I went in one more time and asked about a certain product and the clerk had the nerve to tell me that I should stay off the internet because as a woman I did not know what I was talking. I took great enjoyment telling the clerk on my way out the door that I was never going to buy anything from their store again and that he just threw away a large sum of money we were going to spend there. Have not been back. Manager was not happy hearing how much this guy cost them.

The store I shop at now sold us some sheet rock where the paper was torn. They came out and picked it up and brought out a new shipment of sheet rock.