A woman bought a 'castle' after sending a cheeky letter asking if the owners were selling up their home. Sarah Nolan, 43, fell in love with the property as a child but thought living there was "completely unachievable".
Despite only looking to purchase the house at the start of the year, the 43-year-old says she has a long affinity with the building, reports the Liverpool Echo. Sarah said: "I’ve always loved this house since I was a child.
"It felt like it was a castle when I was little. I would walk past it as I was growing up and think how amazing it would be to live in it."
She bought her first property when she was 22 and despite loving "everything about it" she still always had her eyes set on her dream home. During the pandemic she often wandered the street the property was on with her friends and "admired the house".
After egging her on, she eventually caved and decided to put a note through the door to see if the owner was thinking of selling up. Sarah says her partner, Mark, thought she was 'crazy' for chancing her arm so brazenly.
She said: "On the way home I went and bought the nicest paper, envelopes and pen I could find and sat down to write it I think Mark thought I was crazy. We’d spoke a lot about buying a house together and we knew what we wanted in a property.
"Mark's list was quite extensive. My list was literally this house.
"He left me to it and I stayed up till 4am writing what I thought would be the perfect letter. The house wasn’t for sale and I really didn’t want to offend anyone by asking.
"The next day I met my friends and we went for our walk. I couldn’t even post it so they ran up the path and put it through the door. We where like school children laughing.
"I got back to my car an hour later and I had a text off the owner saying they’d received my letter and would we be interested in coming around over the weekend to chat. Honestly, at that moment my heart was racing so fast.
"The next day we met the family. Unfortunately, the owner had sadly passed away and they where still deciding whether to sell their family home.
"If I would of known this I would never of posted the letter but I suppose something just made me do it. After a really lovely chat the following day with the owners I think they could see how genuine we were and how we really did love their home."
Luckily, for the couple their property sold "within 24 hours" for 20% over the asking price and they were able to move. Upon getting the key to their 'castle' the pair knew they wanted to extend.
However, while waiting for planning permission, they decided to push ahead with other work. Sarah said: "We ripped it back to bare brick, took down walls, boarded out the roof, made a temporary living space in the bedroom and a makeshift kitchen in the spare room.
"We’ve had a new family bathroom fitted. It’s got a real hotel boutique feel to it and I love it.
"We spent six months with just a loo and basin and having to use our family’s houses to have a shower, so the excitement when the bathroom was finished was a whole new level."
And after "years of battles" with the council, the couple's extension was finally given the green light. Sarah said: "They made us change our design slightly but working with the builders we have ended up with the most amazing extension.
"It didn’t come without issues. Once we opened into the existing property we found a lot of structural issue which weren’t cheap to fix."
Sarah loves contemporary spaces, but insists her interiors style sways more towards the traditional. She added: "The house is full of character and 1930 features which we don’t want to lose but we felt it was important to make the extension feel like a modern addition and keeping of it’s time so both elements blend together and meet in the middle."
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - Sign up to our daily newsletter here .
