Halve the cost of your renovation by becoming a discriminating shopper and buying at auction.

If you’ve just bought an apartment or house in serious need of renovation and redecoration, take this great suggestion on board: shop at auctions.

You can buy everything you need at hugely discounted prices without compromising on style or quality.

Home-improvement auction houses (check ‘Auctioneers – General’ in the Yellow Directory, or notices in newspapers) specialise in clearing liquidation, surplus, discontinued or ex-display stock, factory seconds and cancelled orders, antiques and second-hand goods. You’ll be amazed at what you can find.

1. Save big bucks by buying natural hardwood floorboards at auction (pictured above). The Spotted Gum used in the photo cost just $22/sqm at auction as opposed to a retail price of about $39/sqm.

2. For open-plan living, decorate mini-zones with different doses of furnishings, artworks and patterns.

3. Along with interesting pieces, keep your eye out at auctions for sculptural pieces to hold greenery.

4. Replace your dated kitchen with a smart new kitchen bought ‘under the hammer’. Alternatively, selected kitchen suppliers to auction houses offer a service where they’ll customise a similar design at a cost that’s only marginally more than the kitchen up for sale.

5. Do your new kitchen justice with shiny new stainless steel appliances. You’ll save a bundle on retail prices as long as you’ve done price-comparison research, keep a cool head and don’t engage in a bidding war. You could bag yourself a stainless steel appliance package for $1800 with rangehood, oven, cooktop and dishwasher. Yip!

6. Convey a sense of opulence with a mosaic splashback without being seriously out of pocket. Home-improvement auction houses clear out all types of surplus, discontinued and seconds tiles at record low prices. For example, these tumbled stone mosaics would normally set you back about $40 per sheet retail, but at auction they went for just $18 per sheet.

7.  Shop for contemporary and stylish travertine (as pictured), stone, mosaic, porcelain, ceramic and vitrified tiles at home-improvement auction houses and save up to 50 per cent on retail prices. Measure the floor and wall area to ensure you only buy what you need. Selected auction houses have an estimator on site to help calculate your requirements. Tilers recommend you add 10-15 per cent of the meterage to allow for wastage and cutting.

8. Take a shopping list, tape measure and floor plan (showing the position of the toilet, vanity and bath waste) when inspecting bathroomware at an auction house. This ensures the items you choose fit the space and minimise the need for costly alterations to plumbing. Also, check whether you require a P- or S-strap toilet and the offset range (from the finished wall to the centre of the waste). It will save you buying the wrong loo!

9. Buy your materials, fittings and fixtures in bulk and reduce the amount of wastage and carrier fees. These smart 400 x 400mm travertine tiles, a low $50/sqm at auction, were used in the laundry and bathroom. Also purchased on the day were the close-coupled cistern and pan toilet suites for the small sum of $120 each.