A young couple has transformed a "dated and dingy" former council house into a stunning family home. First-time buyers Oli Tobin, 26, and Kira Clutton, 25 have renovated their Wrexham home on a budget of just £10,000.
Oli and Kira paid £145,000 for the three-bed property and moved into their new home in July 2020. They started renovating as soon as they had moved in, making it their lockdown project, and stripped the flooring, carpet, wallpaper and plaster themselves.
The transformation took only four months and the couple hired a plumber, plasterer, and joiner and bought new furniture for every room from their £10,000 budget, the Daily Mirror reports.. With the help of family members, they were able to tile the hallway, kitchen and bathroom themselves. For more homes news you can sign up to our property newsletter here.
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Oli, an exercise referral specialist, said: "We started work the day after we got the keys. We started by removing little things such as the flooring and carpets in rooms, stripping wallpaper, and even removing old ruined plaster off of walls."
Oli also explained how they found wallpaper on top of wallpaper, meaning it took them longer to strip the walls than expected and they had to stick to their strict budget as first-time buyers. He said: "It is still a budget that we worked hard to save up for to create our dream first home."
"The hardest part for us was constantly hitting setbacks by finding lots of bodged jobs hidden in the house. One simple job often turned into three or four separate expensive jobs. However, this didn't stop us as we were determined to achieve our dream house."
Kira and Oli are now expecting their first baby together and are planning on redesigning one of the rooms as a nursery, Oli said: "We have recently found out that we are expecting our first child so we will also have to start thinking and redesigning the rest of this room as it will now have to become a nursery, ready for our little arrival."
