A savvy mum has shared how she saved an impressive £47k on her house makeover by tackling the renovation project herself.
49-year-old accounts manager Donna Crilly decided to renovate her bedroom in order to create extra space in her busy family home. After being quoted £65k by builders, Donna decided to take on the job herself - with the help of her family.
Donna, who lives in Armagh, Northern Ireland but works in Liverpool, told Latest Deals how she pulled off the transformation. She said: "We do almost all of our DIY and I'm a total bargain hunter.
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"The biggest project we completed recently was renovating our bedroom. We made use of the box room and attic in our house and saved almost £50,000 by doing the work ourselves. The project came about out of necessity, as our children are growing up and the house is bursting at the seams - we really needed extra room!
"We needed another shower in the house as there were six of us trying to get ready in the mornings. Plus, my husband and I would end up spending most of our time in the kitchen because our living room was normally full of our children and their friends.
"My husband loves gaming and I wanted to make an area for us to relax. We checked the attic for space. We were originally going to make it accessible with a pull-down ladder but then the idea grew from there.
"I have recently graduated as an interior designer, so I could visualise what I wanted. We sat and played around with ideas until we came up with the one we used. The inspiration for the décor was that I wanted the bedroom to feel calm and relaxed but with a slightly tropical feel.
"I chose pink and green for the colour scheme as they both represent the heart chakra. Green is for physical healing and pink is for emotional healing, so they felt like the perfect colours for the master bedroom.
"I wanted the games room to feel fun but still like a grown-up space, so I chose a rich charcoal grey to keep it feeling mature, and the bright pops of colour stand out against the grey."
After establishing her vision for the project, Donna and her family got to work in order to make it come to life. She added: "We took the box room as well as our bedroom and knocked through the wall.
"That gave us the height to be able to create a proper staircase. My dad helped us with all the work, he is a civil engineer but can pretty much do anything. There was never an actual plan on paper.
"We did have some builders take a look but their quotes were almost double what we could afford, so we did all the work ourselves. The quotes were between £50k and £65k. To avoid paying out this cost, a few favours were called in. One of my sons is a plumber and I also have builders and electricians in my extended family.
"The whole project came in at £18k in the end, saving £47k. We did all the plumbing, drainage, first fix electrics, insulating, plaster boarding and joinery ourselves during the evenings and weekends. Our friends that helped got a good drink at the end and we of course have helped out with their own projects.
"I searched all over for materials, getting job lots of building materials from Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace. I got to know my local building and bathroom suppliers and was able to find end-of-line stock for a lot of supplies, plus we made a lot ourselves.
"I got rolls of insulation and Kingspan off Gumtree for £200, plus plasterboard for £100. It was slightly damaged at the ends, but we had to cut so much of it that we made it work.
"One of my favourite areas of the room is the shoe cupboard. This space materialised because the door we originally ordered for the en-suite came with clear instead of frosted glass and they wouldn’t exchange it.
"I then thought about the space under the stairs and thought I could create somewhere lovely for my nice shoes. We just made plain white shelves and fitted a colour-changing bulb to help showcase what is on them. The wardrobes that I used in my dressing room were part of a fitted bedroom set that I bought second hand for £150 off Marketplace.
"The top of the dressing table was badly marked so I resprayed it and then got a piece of glass cut with a bevelled edge to put on top. I bought LED lights from IKEA and fitted them around the mirror. The glass was £140 and the lights were £42.
"I got beautiful crystal door knobs from Home Bargains, they cost just £9.99 for 4. I found the sofa for the games room for £20 on Marketplace, then I made the cushions myself from squares of cotton I got on Amazon for £10.
"I got the kitchen in the attic for £100 off Gumtree as it was ex-display. I made the tea canisters by sticking superhero models on top of really cheap ones with epoxy resin. The canisters were £8.99 from The Range and the superhero figures came from Amazon for £4.99 each.
"It took almost a year to do it all and it wasn’t pleasant to live in the house during this time. Sometimes we climbed over bags of plaster to get to bed! But it’s all worth it now."
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