A couple who couldn’t find a property they loved in their favourite area instead bought a 1930s doer-upper and transformed it into their dream home - adding nearly £190,000 to the value.

Elisha Lawton and her boyfriend Jordan Fern, both 30, purchased their three-bedroom detached home in Derby for £309,000 in March 2019, after seven months of searching.

For them, the most important thing was having family and friends nearby as well as an easy commute for them both, with Elisha working as a quantity surveyor and Jordan as a project manager.

But they hadn't been able to find a house that had everything they wanted in the perfect location, and they realised taking on a project to give them their dream home was the best option.

“Location was one of the biggest factors,” Elisha said.

“It’s close to family and friends and an easy journey to work, local pubs, shops etc. but we couldn’t find a home which we felt suited us long term without compromising on something else such as garden size or the style of kitchen, so we opted for an older fixer-upper to enable us to convert it into our forever home.”

Although they spent £154,500 ripping everything out, redecorating and then adding an extension, they believe the property is now worth around £500,000, based on similar ones on the market nearby.

To keep costs down, the couple tried to do as much of the work themselves as possible but did get professional help where they had to.

Elisha said: “We did lots of the 'stripping out' stage ourselves, taking the internals back to brick and demolished the garage with the help of my dad.

“Throughout the build, we tried to do any laborious tasks over the weekends but got trades in to help with more specialist areas such as building the extension, roofing, and plastering.

“Lots of the smaller tasks such as running cables and the underfloor heating we did ourselves through guides on YouTube and TikTok, for example.”

They started by pulling all the old plaster, paint and wallpaper off the walls and removing the plasterboard ceilings.

Elisha said: “This enabled us to easily run new cables for a full rewire to locations best suited for how we would layout each of the rooms (for example; bedside power, tv locations, desk locations).

“We have added extra insulation internally to the older rooms of the house as the outer walls are only nine inches (no cavity space) so generally aren’t as warm as new homes.

“With us ripping everything back to brick it allowed us to future proof the house as much as possible.

“We have also made the house as ‘smart’ as possible by adding in various individual room controls and conduits for future cable runs.”

They added the extension, costing around £85,000, to create an open plan living area, kitchen and utility room, designed exactly how they wanted.

Elisha said: "The open plan is 8m x 6m (4m at the back of the kitchen) where we’ve got aluminium bi-folds, three roof lanterns and a herringbone floor.

“The kitchen is a five-piece shaker style in taupe grey and indigo blue, with quartz worktops. The island is the dream!”

As well as extending at the back, they demolished the existing garage and rebuilt a two-storey section, giving them more space upstairs.

Elisha said: "This added two bedrooms to the upstairs on that side, and space for the utility/more open plan downstairs, in addition to still having a garage space.

"We’ve then changed one of the smaller rooms to an en-suite (our wet room) and added a toilet downstairs.

"It’s now four bedrooms, two bathrooms upstairs and an extra toilet downstairs."

Elsewhere, the old house threw up a few surprises but Elisha and Jordan learned to adapt their plan.

Elisha said: “The front room was the previous owner's dining room, however, the open-plan space has meant we could turn this into a snug area.

“When knocking it back to brick we opened up the original fireplace that had been boarded over but it was too small to allow for the log burner we had our eyes on.

“We made a last-minute decision to remove the fireplace and chimney (which allowed us extra space in our main bedroom) and instead rebuilt one to the style we wanted in brick.

“The brick has lovely shades of black throughout which compliments the lamp black by Little Greene paint we’ve used as a feature.”

The couple also reconfigured the bathroom set up to make it work as a family home.

Elisha said: “We’ve added a toilet downstairs, renovated the old bathroom with a freestanding bath and moved the window to south side of the house to allow for extra light, and converted an original small bedroom into our ensuite.

“The ensuite is black furniture with marble tiles and gives that luxury hotel feel with the walk-in shower.

“The main bathroom we wanted more of a neutral/ spa feel; with stone effect tiles from mandarin stone we’ve added some Phillips Hue into the spotlights for the added mood lighting and will be finishing off the window sill with a timber surround to frame it.”

The pair also wanted to add some traditional elements to their 1930s home and decided to add panelling throughout the hallway, stairs and landing.

Elisha said: “If you look closely, it matches the style of the new internal doors.

“We got a joiner to do this for us because of the delicate angle cuts required up the stairs - put together with MDF and timber mouldings."

The couple are still finishing off the upstairs bedrooms and the garden and adding the final touches to the other rooms.

So far, they’ve spent a total of around £154,500, bringing the total spend on the home to £463,500, but they estimate it's worth around £500,000.

Now Elisha and Jordan are delighted with the results and how they were able to create their perfect home.

Elisha said: "For me, I’d say the most enjoyable part was watching our home come to life - especially our kitchen as we’ve designed it exactly how we wanted.

“Jordan will definitely say he enjoyed the messy stage; demolishing the old garage, ripping down the ceilings and knocking plaster off the wall! it was also fun having the flexibility to plan out our own cable/pipe runs so that we left room for future improvements.”

When it comes to tips for other taking on big projects, Elisha said: “Don’t do things half measures, if it means delaying something to get the finish right or ensure you have made the correct decision for you then do it.

“Otherwise you’ll continually see the ‘rushed finish’ and regret it. We didn’t think about drainage very closely - although we’ve boxed all of ours in internally we lost some space in the utility and had to move the door access to adjust!”
 
Breakdown of costs:
Extension, new roof and house to plastered finish - £90k
Render - £8k
Windows, bifolds, roof lanterns, doors - £14k
Electrics - £5.5k
Plumbing and smart controls - £8k
Kitchen and utility including appliances and worktops - £17k
Garden - £9500
Tiles - £2500
Total - £154,500