If you haven’t gathered this by now, let me reiterate the fact that I have an incessant need to buy only things from the thrift store or on sale. Before I could even purchase things with my own money, it was ingrained into my brain that I should NEVER buy anything full price.

So it comes as no surprise that I was in deal-finding heaven this past weekend when my parents took Brett and I to this builder’s outlet warehouse.

It’s called Building Materials Outlet and it is in Eagan, Minnesota – the opposite side of the Twin Cities from our house. Which means we have to actually plan to go there. It’s not like we could just hop in the car and run to the store five minutes away. Needless to say, this was a big deal, even before we pulled into the parking lot.

So how did we find this place if it’s on the other side of the world? My parents had been talking about visiting BMO since we moved in last March and it had taken us six months to finally get it on the calendar.

They would yammer on about how great this place was and that we could find some great deals and it would be so wonderful and we need to get there soon, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Having now made the trek down there, I can assure you it was everything they said and more.

Let me paint the scene. You walk into this warehouse and to your right is appliances, then there is an area for tile and furniture and then rows and rows of kitchen cabinets. Then there are rows of bathroom vanities and then these absolutely stunning butcher blocks and also a section of granite counter tops. If you go to the back of the store, there is a separate room filled with trim. From there, you walk into a room full of doors of all different sizes and then that connects to an area with rows and rows of windows and a section of bathtubs. And best of all, everything is at a discounted price.

I mean, this place is amazing. Extremely overwhelming, but amazing.

We walked in at about 8:15 in the morning and after doing a quick once-over of the entire place, wound up in the window section. We were looking for two windows to go in the guest bedroom, one for the mudroom and one for the second guest bedroom/the current office. After sifting through the mountain of windows, we were able to get four Pella windows for more than half-off the retail price.

After going through the windows, we perused the bathtubs to see if we could find something for the guest bathroom, but came up short.

Then we mulled over buying a new dryer because our current one leaves much to be desired. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either.

Lastly, and what I am most excited to share, is we found some tile for the mudroom and guest bathroom at 99 cents and $1.33 per square foot!

mudroom tile

guest bathroom tile

We walked out at 11:30 with huge smiles on our faces – you know, the kind that you get when you realize you just got an amazing deal and are so excited to bring your goodies home.

Which brings me to the moral of this great story – check your area for a builders outlet. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but now that I do, I am sure Brett and I will be frequent visitors.

This place is anything but glamorous, but honestly who cares when you’re getting a great deal? Renovating a house is dang expensive and if you can cut some costs by having to sift through tons of stuff, then do it! It may be a little more work to actually find what you are looking for, but it’ll save you hundreds in the long run!

P.s. We (and by we, I mean Brett) started mudding the sheetrock and our walls are starting to actually look real!

All our best,