'Unsellable Houses' Stars Reveal Tricks for Saving Money on Renovations

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Unsellable Houses stars Lyndsay Lamb and Leslie Davis are on a roll. The twin sisters and real estate agents recently won season five of Rock the Block, appeared on House Hunters: All Stars, and are gearing up for a fifth season of their HGTV series. They even started a podcast, Twin Win Unfiltered, that digs into the behind-the-scenes of their busy lives. While fixing many homes over the years, the duo has learned major ways to save money on renovations—and anyone can follow suit. From refreshing cabinetry with new doors to finding materials in unexpected places, take a look at their top tips below.

Reuse Cabinetry

For a kitchen renovation, the duo says one of the biggest ways to save money is to reuse cabinetry and some appliances. "You can paint cabinetry and replace hardware," they tell House Beautiful. "If you need more than just paint to make it feel right, you can still save a ton by just replacing the doors to a new style and leaving the cabinet body in place."

Source Leftover Materials

Another option for building or revamping a kitchen is to ask a cabinet installer for remnant boxes. This way, you can design a fresh kitchen for a fraction of what a custom job will cost. “If we are going to have colored cabinets, we will ask the cabinet installer to use 'leftover' cabinet boxes from any job they had that fit the space and layout so that we are getting a lower price by using mix-and-match boxes and not ordering a new complete matching set," Lamb says.

Through this method, Lamb and Davis usually end up with white, natural, and even blue boxes when the kitchen is installed. "This is totally fine with us because we then have it painted the color we want the boxes to be," Lamb says. "Often, this is because we are going for a color that is not 'in stock' with standard cabinet colors. We will paint them our custom color, and no one would [be any] the wiser.”

Turn to Unexpected Places

Lamb and Davis recommend buying materials and fixtures from a salvage yard, Habitat for Humanity, or building material auctions for good deals on quality pieces. Classic buy-and-sell websites (like Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and AptDeco) are also a great place to start. "People are always moving and need to sell perfectly fine appliances quickly, or you may end up finding a ton of lumber left over from someone else's project they need to sell before moving," they say.

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