22 February 2024 , 10:00
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A couple spent £150k on "the ugliest house on the street" and managed to double its value by doing DIY they learned from YouTube.
Lizzy Williams, 37, and her husband Phil, 40, bought the four-bedroom semi-detached house in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in June 2014. They said it was the "ugliest" house on the road because no one had lived there for four years - it had holes in the ceiling, dead plants, and fungus growing in the downstairs loo.
Over nine years, Lizzy and Phil renovated the property themselves, saving an estimated £200k in costs. They used YouTube to learn how to do the plumbing, electrics, build a swimming pool and install a kitchen. They also hired builders to add an extension at the back of the house and fit a new roof.
By September 2023, they had finished the renovations and turned the house into their dream family home. In total, they spent £150k transforming "the ugliest house on the street" using their savings and salaries, and they believe they have doubled the home's value. Lizzy, who works in marketing, said: "Phil is very details focused - he absorbs information really well. We used a lot of online forums to help us - we would watch YouTube videos too.
Lizzy and Phil Williams at their four-bed St Albans house during the renovation (Lizzy Williams / SWNS)"He would lean on friends and family to help us out and ask advice on how to approach situations. It is a bit of a myriad of research on the internet and asking friends. We put our heart and soul into the house - the fact that we did a lot of the renovation ourselves makes our home really special.
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"The main house renovation took us around six years as we did most of the work ourselves. We fully completed the renovation last year, finishing off the garden - nine years after we originally bought the house." Phil and Lizzy bought their house in June 2014 and started fixing it up six months later.
How Lizzy and Phil's kitchen looked before and after the renovation (Lizzy Williams/SWNS)They lived in just two rooms while they fixed the rest of the house. Lizzy explained: "We set the front room up as our bedroom and then we had a back bedroom that we used as a living room. Everywhere else we were doing work on - we lived in those rooms for a year. We didn't have a back of the house for a year either as we were building the extension."
The house had four bedrooms when they got it, but Phil and Lizzy made them bigger and turned the garage into four new rooms. Lizzy added: "It is not the same house that we bought, we re-plumbed, we added a two-storey rear extension with the neighbours. We were able to extend the footprint of the house, going back into the garden. We converted the garage into four rooms that we use as a utility room, toilet, study and boot room.
The families renovated even includes a swimming pool (Lizzy Williams / SWNS)"We went down a bit too, underneath the house was just a void that was used for storage. We regained that space and now you step into our kitchen area." In total, Lizzy and Phil spent £150k on the property, they had £40k in savings, borrowed money and used their salary to afford the transformation.
Lizzy said: "The £40k we had saved lasted us around two years, we borrowed some more money and used our salary for the rest of it. That is another reason why it has taken us so long as we did not have huge reserves. It has been a hard slog but we love it."
She says her favourite room in the house is the kitchen and enjoys the "quirky" features in the home - including a "hangover bench" to sit in the shower and a TV in the bathroom. Lizzy said: "We really like the kitchen, we love the high ceilings and the space we have. In 1950s houses you don't really get that, our ceilings in the kitchen are three-and-a-half metres tall.
The exterior of Lizzy and Phil's kitchen before and after the renovation (Lizzy Williams/SWNS)"It gives you a feeling of space and openness which you wouldn't otherwise get. Obviously the swimming pool is cool, it is great in the summer for our son, William, three. We have put some fun features into the home, we have a TV in the family bathroom. We have a bench in the shower that we lovingly call the hangover bench."