Coming home

First-time buyer Lloyd Randall is moving back to his home town of Cardiff, extending and renovating a house on the same street his parents bought their first home on years before

First-time buyer Lloyd Randall followed closely in his mum and dad’s footsteps when he found a mid-terrace house in the Victoria

Park area of Cardiff. His parents bought their first house on the same road 30 years before — and now live in a farmhouse they recently finished renovating 20 minutes outside of the city.

“I’d been looking for a house in the city and it felt like such a coincidence when I saw this place was available. It needed updating, but there was room to extend out into the garden and the precedent was set by other homeowners in the street who had done similar work,” says Lloyd.

“However, it was clear I wasn’t the only one who saw its potential, and the house was in demand.”

The house was on the market because its previous owner had passed away. Her children wanted it to go to a young couple looking to get on the property ladder.

Lloyd, who was looking to buy with his girlfriend, Pippa Ninnes, fitted the bill, and when he revealed the house was literally a few doors up from where his parents had lived and only two streets over from where he grew up, his bid was accepted. The plans for the work came together quickly — a necessity as both Lloyd and Pippa were due to relocate from the West Midlands and had jobs lined up in Cardiff; the pair “didn’t fancy commuting every day!”

The ground floor originally included a front room, dining room, kitchen and lean-to extension with a toilet and utility. The old lean-to has been removed to make way for a new full-width

extension, added to create a large open plan kitchen diner, with the front room repurposed as a snug.

Upstairs, there are two generous double bedrooms, a smaller bedroom and a family bathroom.

New joinery has been fitted throughout and the walls replastered, while the heating system has also been upgraded in the whole property. Three new Velux rooflights have been fitted on the rear extension, with bifold doors from Welsh Bi-folds soon to be installed.

It fits Lloyd’s preferred style of bringing in local trades and buying from local companies where possible, including Appletree Kitchens, which will be supplying and installing the centrepiece of the open plan kitchen diner — Lloyd’s “musthave” island.

Lloyd has taken on much of the work himself — at various points roping in Pippa and his friends to help. The extension, built under Permitted Development, went up quickly, but there are delays on the horizon. Both of Lloyd’s builders have injured themselves on other projects, so he’s now waiting for his concrete screed to be levelled.

He’s currently taking emergency time off work to make sure he sticks to the schedule. “I was extremely happy with how smoothly the project was going, and felt very lucky I hadn’t experienced any delays, until the extension work came to a complete standstill,” he says. “It has been a bit of a panic to try and squeeze the final building works in so as not to delay the kitchen fitters. I’m sleeping with my fingers crossed!”