A couple spent £150k on what they called “the ugliest house on the street” in one of the UK’s most beautiful cities. Now, after learning DIY from YouTube, it’s worth double.
Lizzy Williams, 37, and her husband Phil, 40, bought the four-bedroom semi-detached house in St Albans, Hertfordshire, in June 2014. It was in a sorry state, having been empty for four years with holes in the ceiling, dead plants, and fungus in the downstairs loo.
Over nine years, they renovated it themselves, saving an estimated £200k by learning how to do plumbing, electrics, build a swimming pool, and install a kitchen from YouTube videos.
They did hire builders to add an extension at the back and fit a new roof.
By September 2023, they had turned the once ugly house into their dream family home.
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. 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. 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.”
After purchasing the property in June 2014, they moved in six months later to start the makeover. Phil and Lizzy initially lived in two bedrooms whilst work was going on around them.
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.”
When they purchased the property it had four bedrooms, Phil and Lizzy extended the property to make the bedrooms larger, plus turned the garage into extra spaces.
Lizzy said: “It is not the same house that we bought, we re-plumbed, we added a two-storey rear extension with the neighbours’ permission. We managed to expand the size of the house, pushing back into the garden. We converted the garage into four spaces that we use as a utility room, toilet, study and boot room.
“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.”
Lizzy and Phil spent a total of £150k on the property, using their £40k savings, borrowed money, and their salaries to fund the transformation.
“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,” Lizzy explained.
Her favourite room in the house is the kitchen, and she enjoys the “quirky” features in the home – including a “hangover bench” in the shower and a TV in the bathroom.
“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. 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,” Lizzy said.
