Mum spends £250,000 turning 'run down' 1930s home into five-bed dream oasis
A mum has worked for three years to flip her 'drab' home into a luxury mansion, and it looks incredible.
Katy Wilson snapped up the property, located in Derby, for £300,000 back in 2015. Back then, it was far from her dream home, but was all her budget could afford. So, the software sales assistant embarked on a mission to turn the 1930s home, with two main bedrooms and a tiny box room, into a five-bedroom oasis for her family.
It took three years and a staggering £250,000 - but the house has now been valued at more than £800,000. So, let's take a look...
It's now significantly bigger (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)
Katy is now launching a website to help others with similar projects (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)Back in 2023, Wilson showed how the exterior has been completely transformed thanks to a four-room extension at the back of the house and a decision to remove the existing roof to create another attic bedroom. The work has doubled the number of bedrooms and overall square footage of the floor plan - and Katy said she's "easily made her money back".
The mum, who says she's always had a keen interest in interior design, added two extra bedrooms with en-suites, an office, roof terrace, 'snug', and a playroom for her daughter Lila Smith. The wooden staircase and hallway floors were stripped back and replaced with grey carpeted stairs, and a black and white tiles.
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A huge glass wall was added to open up the space (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)The small, dark kitchen was given a significant extension to create a granite island in the middle, complete with plush bar stools. At the back, the garden was re-landscaped and now features a patio area with wooden panelling to match the house exterior and outdoor seating.
The house now has its own Instagram page (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)
The original wooden stairs and flooring was given a makeover (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)The project took Katy more than three years from the application for planning permission in mid 2016 to the building work being completed in November 2019 - a year after first breaking ground. Katy now shares the home with her partner Paul Smith and their daughter Lila - and the experience has inspired the mum to start her own design website.
She will offer her services to people looking to undertake similar projects, helping them find the right materials and tradespeople to get the job done. Katy said: "This has been a really good segue for me into pursuing interior design, which is something I've always been really into.
"If I could go back in time, I think I would have done some proper qualifications to do with that. The main thing is just to go into it with your eyes open - and make sure to over-budget, as there are always going to be costs you can't forecast.
Katy lives in the home with her partner Paul and daughter Lila (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)
The interior is incredible (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)"Our builders told us we'd only need five skips when we started - but we ended up using 22 skips, at about £300 a skip. It feels a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.
"But I would also encourage people not to be afraid of going down the route of having bespoke joinery or furniture made, as sometimes that can actually save you money. It's all about finding good tradespeople. We ended up with a really good little pool of people - but we were let down by a few tradespeople along the way."
Katy says it's been valued at £800,000 (Katy Wilson / SWNS.com)She added: "We had an idea of what we wanted our home to look like, but all the houses that fit the bill were way above our budget. We had our house valued since the building work finished, and it's been valued at over £800k - so we've easily made our money back.
"It's not entirely in keeping with the rest of the street that we live on, which is all 1930s houses. But we have heard that since we got planning permission on ours, a couple of other young families on the street have also put in for planning permission.
"That's one of the main things that I'm taking away from this - that it has encouraged other young families in the area to also try and modernise. I think that the street will evolve now, in time." Katy has her own Instagram account to show the transformation of her home, which boasts almost 93,000 followers, and can be found at @placefortyeight.
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