Lisa’s house is now Insta-perfect (Picture: LatestDeals)
First-time buyers, in particular, will know that you can always get more for your money if you buy somewhere more dated and do it up yourself – especially if you do your renovating on a budget.
That’s exactly what homeowner, Lisa Allison, 33, did to her run-down two-bedroom property in Blidworth, Nottinghamshire.
Despite having a modest £5k budget and just four weeks in which to complete the work, she’s got her place looking immaculate, thanks to a few penny-pinching tups.
The media and digital content specialist bought the property in October 2020 and turned it around in a month. Not only did she smash her goal, but she tripled her £5k investment, with the house now valued at around £15-20k more than what she bought it for.
‘I bought my home for a good price due to all the work it needed, so I knew that by doing it up I would add some value, but I was surprised by how much,’ Lisa told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk.
‘I thought that I may just cover my costs, but an estate agent has informed me that the renovations have added around £15-£20k to the property’s value.
‘I’m over the moon with the result. It means that down the line, when I do sell up, I will have that extra money, my deposit and any equity I have built up in the home as my reward.’
Lisa hadn’t originally planned on a renovation project – bar some painting – but found this property for a great price and put in an offer.
The bathroom before and after (Picture: LatestDeals)
Lisa’s excitement soon turned to nerves when she came to terms with the amount of work that would be involved to make the property liveable.
‘It wasn’t a house you could just move into,’ she says.
‘I knew it would take a lot of work, but I had fallen in love with the property and started thinking about all the things I could do to turn it into a home. I thought it would be easy, but I was so wrong. I don’t regret it though.’
Starting with colour schemes, Lisa decided to go with rose gold, being inspired by blush pink breakfast bar chairs she saw in Homesense.
She then got to work on what would need to be done in the small amount of time she had off from work.
Lisa says: ‘I needed to get the whole house turned around in four weeks to get it ready in time for Christmas, but I could only take two weeks’ leave from my job, so most of the work happened then. I wanted to do as much of it as possible myself in order to keep down costs.
The kitchen area before and after (Picture: LatestDeals)
‘On the first weekend I knocked down the dividing kitchen wall and ripped out the kitchen.
‘The plasterer came to do the kitchen not long after. The second weekend was spent taking all the rubbish to the tip, ripping …read more
Source:: Metro