Well who says “free” tools don’t work? After trying to find sizes, stock and then going through a whole will it, wont it fit dilemma i finally went back to the B&Q website and used their planner to check some space arrangements.

On doing so i selected their Barcelona range and dropped items in and then got a nice surprise when i hit the price list button to find all the items were either half price or less!

So what could i do? I hit the buy button and all is on it’s way. Now i know i have to get it to the house but since we need to take a lot of materials over soon we’ll just load this in with us. The plan never was to buy items here and ship but the strong € against the £ now makes it far cheaper to by items here and then take them with me especially at the time of the sales.

Prime example is this sink :

Was £75 now £37.49 . One that i have seen in France €130 and at todays rate thats a saving of £86.25 or €90. That’s the diesel paid for in one item alone ( and the WC the saving was much greater ).

There are of course things that people need to check before buying and shipping these items abroad. Make sure the pipe sizes are the same and that you buy the waste gates with the items so you know everything fits.

Now i normally wouldn’t suggest this but i must admit the way things are right now with the exchange it’s much better to buy all the plasterboard, tiles, grout and wood for the new wall frame it’s going to be about 50% less to create this bathroom.

UPDATE ALL CHANGE: Unfortunately for me however while I’m raring to go and get this started with the Honeymoon coming up I’m not able to get to the house until end of Feb / March. That said with it being sub zero at the moment maybe that isn’t a bad thing.

As usual it’s all change. I’m booked on a very early ferry Jan 10th to go check all is going to fit. Report as usual.

Lee