MY EXPERIENCE

I was on maternity leave when we bought this place, so we had no money at first. After staying with my parents for eight weeks, we lived upstairs for a year until we were both working full-time and we could start updating the house. My mum brought us meals on wheels, and we had a kettle and microwave in our son’s bedroom.

After knocking the wall down and installing a steel beam, the door from the hallway was blocked up along with a frosted glass internal window into the dining room. We spotted the teal kitchen in IKEA, which was perfect for our new L-shaped layout. There wasn’t room for all the appliances though, so our washing machine is under the stairs and the fridge-freezer is in the dining area.

I’m lucky that my husband, Alex, is a qualified plasterer, his brother is a plumber and he’s friends with a builder and an electrician.

This meant that there was a lot of job skill swaps going on, which saved us money. Alex and his stepdad also fitted the kitchen, did the tiling and removed the old back boiler.

For two years the dining room walls and floorboards were white before we added some colour. Due to a deep access space under the house, a lot of sand and dust would come up through the floorboards, so we opted for vinyl flooring with a bold print. This led to the pink feature wall in the dining room.

Eventually, we’d like to build a rear extension to create a bigger kitchen-diner, but we’ve made the most of the space for now. I love how bright and cheerful it feels. When you’re at home a lot, it’s just what you need.