This may not seem One Room Challenge related, but this week I bought the tap for our utility room and along the way, found two other dreamy kitchen taps, all for under €40! This week, the utility room has proven to be frustrating. We had hoped to have the countertop and cabinets in place, but there has been a delay – not totally unexpected these days I suppose. So instead, I did a tonne of online shopping! Hopefully next week, I’ll be able to show you photos of the utility room that it closer to looking like the mood board!
But back to the taps!
When we first planned the kitchen we were considering splashing out on boiling water tap, but they were even more expensive than what we thought. Not only that, you also had to change filters regularly and it took up a lot of space underneath the cabinet. I know anyone who has this tap LOVES it, but in the end, we decided not to bite that particular bullet. We did however put a socket under the sink in case we changed our minds in the future. Which we easily could!
Onto option number 2…
I then considered a tap with a pull out hose. I think they’re a great idea, but found it hard to find low budget ones with good reviews. For low quality taps, it’s seems pretty common for the hose to fall out and just hang from tap when not in use. Also, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the shape of most of these taps. I really wanted the spout of the tap to be slim, right to the end, UNLIKE this one below.
The Chosen One
So I was just looking for a simple, rounded kitchen tap. I probably should have mentioned earlier that my heart my set on a stainless steel looking tap, which would match both the sink and the handles on our oven. This pushed my choices down and the cost up! (typical for me!) But in the end, I found this tap, which arrived last week and I love it! We even had our plumber take a look and he’s happy too! It’s the perfect height, shape, colour and I love how handy a single lever mixer tap is to adjust the temperature really easily. True love!
Our Utility Room Tap
I wasn’t as fussed in choosing a tap for the utility room, but loved the idea of having either a black or gold one. After realising there will already be a lot of black accents coming from the handles, I decided to go with gold! (Don’t worry, I still found this fab black one for those of you looking!!) Not only that, but I’m trying a tap with a pull out hose!!! I’m not as anxious about putting it in the utility as it won’t be getting as much use as the kitchen tap. I bought this beauty… a brushed gold tap. I’m hoping the colour isn’t too yellow, but it looks pretty good in the photo below!
We are reusing the sink from our previous utility, which is stainless steel. I’m not sure how it will look to have two different metals so close together, but I’m going to give it a try! What are your thoughts on different metal sink and taps??
Anyway, below you’ll see the black tap I almost got and the stunning gold one I did! I’m keeping all my fingers and toes crossed that it’s just as beautiful in real life!
A Few Tips Buying Kitchen Taps
- Make sure you buy taps with ceramic disks in the description. It means it’s better quality and will definitely last longer.
- Triple check the dimensions!! I found huge differences in heights and you want to make sure it projects far enough out so you can easily cleans large pots etc.
- Reviews are really important if you’re trying to find low-budget, godd quality taps, which is why Amazon is so handy. But this was my first time buying on Ebay, which had no reviews!! Instead, make sure your seller has a feedback score of over 99%. Do not go under this!
- Amazon and Ebay were the best places to find budget kitchen taps. But I also checked donedeal and facebook marketplace, as sometimes people sell new, unwanted taps. They were there, just not my style. I also found Taps Uk and Tap Warehouse worth checking out.
Oh and I found three other low budget gold ones that were near the top of my list, just click on the description to find out more! And don’t forget all the taps I mentioned in this post are low budget taps. They might not be the absolute best in quality, but they all have good reviews and that’s most important to me!
Click here to check out the other One Room Challenge participants. I’m sure most managed to get further along in their progress than I did this week! 😉