Bunnings home improvement and gardening store - share your best home improvement tips - win £200 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

This thread is for the 10 MNers who went along to the Grand Opening Weekend of the new Bunnings Warehouse in Milton Keynes on 8/9 July. Thanks so much for going along, we hope you enjoyed it!

Non attendees:
To be in with a chance of winning £200 leisure voucher, please share your best home improvement tip on this thread - everyone who does so will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win the voucher!

Attendees:
Below are a few feedback questions for you to answer - if you have any more comments, please feel free to add them to your response. Do share your feedback - tag @bunnings_uk

Why did you want to visit Bunnings in Milton Keynes?
What did you enjoy about it?
Did it inspire you? If yes, in what ways?
What did you spend your £20 on? Please share a photo of your purchase(s)
Do you think you’d return to the new Bunnings store when you were after home improvement or gardening products?
How would you describe the store to someone who had never been?

All the attendees who share feedback will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will win a £100 leisure voucher voucher.

Thanks, and good luck with the prize draws!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Just in case anyone is thinking of coming to Bunnings today - we've popped in because dh needed some gravel and I thought it would make for an easy lunch
And discovered that there's still loads going on - dc got given bouncy balls going in and tennis balls coming out, face painters, magician, popcorn, candy floss, balloon modellers and that's as far as I got...

The balloon modellers were particularly good - picture shows Spider-Man made for ds next to the children's indoor playground and the cafe...

It's busy but not that busy - there are a few car spaces on each row.

Sorry, started typing that while waiting for my sausage and just realised it didn't publish properly. Retried and it seems to be successful but 2 hours later than anticipated!

I might get DH to take the kids tomorrow while I am sleeping off the MidnightMoo!

Visit second hand sites such as Gumtree and Ebay. Very often, people are selling excess flooring remnants, tiles etc from their own home improvements at a really discounted cost. We have saved thousands of pounds by doing this (then you have more to spend on lovely new things to finish off your home interior at Bunnings!)

Non-attendee: My best improvement tip is to put a sticky tape just below, when you paint the ceiling. It saves the walls from unwanted paint and saves time afterwards.

My tip is if you try to sand your floors, make sure to protect or be very careful of your radiator pipes (oops...)!

Non attendee tip: sometimes taking pictures of a room and looking at them on screen will give you a different perspective and help you to see how you can make changes.

Non-attendee here but my tip would be to plan things out properly before starting any home improvements. So many times I've been caught out by nearly getting to the end of painting/papering/gardening and running out of stuff, nearly finishing a room to find that I can't get curtains in the right colour or getting a room 80% finished and feeling that it's just not quite right.

And don't leave things thinking that you'll come back to it - you won't!

Non-attendee

Get cheap lining paper and measure out the items you're thinking of - bed, sofa, furniture etc. Use this to test out possible room layouts.

Non attendee.

My top tip (other than planning and preparation ) is that there is nothing as permanent as a temporary fix.

For example in a rush to finish a room for a party we put up some blinds that didn't quite fit properly but thought they would do for the day and we would get some proper ones ordered. 7 years we lived with those blinds before sorting them out! That's an extreme example but once you realise this it's easy to spot areas where temporary measures can creep in on a permanent basis

Non-attendee

Soda crystals diluted in hot water bring up old paving slabs brilliantly. It makes such a difference and they are so cheap - about £1 in supermarkets. Just pour on and brush with a stiff broom.

*Non attendee
*
My tip is to fill unused space with shelves. Really helps us with storage.

Non Attendee: If your going to wallpaper a room, do all the paintwork first. Ceiling, doors, windows, facings and skirting boards. This wiil save you having to accurately cut in to avoid getting paint or varnish on the paper. It will take less time and wont matter if paint edges onto your walls as the wallpaper will hide it when hung.

When painting a room make sure to spend time prepping first as this is the biggest part. Unscrew light switches and sockets to get a nice finish, use masking tape to avoid paint getting on them, fill where necessary and remove any old paint if it's flaking.

Home improvement tip-if you have no plastic gloves then,when painting or gardening, always smoother vaseline or similar over hands first to protect them, in particular over/down your nails -I got fed up of having to use a nail brush or swafega to clean my hands afterwards as I'm a very messy painter.

smother!!!

DeClutter - you will be surprised how much more spacious a room looks - Once you have 'stripped it bare' of clutter carefully decide which homely things you would like to add back in to add the love to the room

Little changes can make a big difference - things like changing handles can totally change the look of a piece of furniture, new bedding can brighten up a room, a throw can give a new lease of life to a sofa or chair

Non-attendee

My best tip is be sure your house has safety features before moving in with your special needs child!!! I've spent months trying to get the landlord to even quote me a price to put safety locks on upstairs windows!!!

New curtains are a cheap way of brightening and freshening up a room!

I had a leak from the bathroom which left yellow water marks on the kitchen ceiling. I tried everything to cover it but it kept showing through until someone told me to cover it in gloss paint first and then paint as normal ... problem solved!!

Best home improvement tip:

Walk around your home and make a 'snagging' list of things that are broken or not quite right.

Then you can work your way through them or pay someone else to, rather than letting them continually bug you but never doing anything about it.

Non attendee

Finish a room/project before moving onto the next. I have loads of jobs half done that I haven't got round to finishing.

Good prevention for marks and ripping wallpaper off! Eg not using sticky tape on walls, using blutack, getting wipe-able paint

If on a tight budget (like i usually am!) using A4 sized prints or wallpaper sample in frames can really brighten up the room