A thrifty couple have redecorated their three-bedroom home for less than £700 including with a new dazzling decor.
Solicitor Poppy Cooke, 26, from Kent, moved into a newly built property with partner Jordan, 28, in June 2021 but was turned off by the drab white walls and the fact it was indistinguishable from any other house on the street.
Fortunately, Poppy had always enjoyed home renovation and saw the three-bedroom detached property, bought for £397,500, as a blank canvas full of potential.
The bathroom renovation alone made the couple a saving of £500 as they fitted the flooring, decorated the walls with leftover paint and found a £50 sink on Facebook marketplace which Jordan installed.
Poppy decided to get to work and implemented her preferred colourful, bold and cosy styling in each room of the house.
"I remember coming home from work for the first time after buying it, to a completely white house and I hated it," she said.
"That's when we decided to start making our home colourful and adding paint or wallpaper to each space. The art of sanding down, caulking and painting are the main things we needed to master.
"We've learnt how best to wallpaper with peel and stick wallpaper which was probably one of our hardest fiddliest projects in the kitchen.
"We loved having a blank canvas to work with and loved seeing the transformation from blank to colourful. We try to keep each room as warm as possible with orangey/pink/coral tones throughout the whole house to bring it all together.
"We don't tend to think things through fully - we just buy/do things we like and really hope it all looks good together."
Poppy takes a thrifty approach to home renovation, scouring Facebook marketplace for bargains and doing much of the work herself rather than enlisting the help of workmen.
"Our main bathroom renovation definitely saved us money," she said. "We bought floorpops and fitted them ourselves instead of tiles.
"We also bought our sink and sink unit on Facebook marketplace for £50 and upcycled it with leftover paint and a good clean and scrub. Jordan fitted the sink himself and did the plumbing for that too."
These thrifty ways have meant she has been able to keep costs to a minimum with a full estimated breakdown as follows: bedroom painted with coat, £60- £80; bathroom - painted with lick, floor pop tiles, sink from Facebook marketplace, £100; spare room painted and then a gallery wall with gifted items; en-suite painted with coat and bought pink accessories, £100; downstairs toilet wallpaper, £200; and kitchen lick wallpaper - £250.
With all the items coming to a grand total of £660.
"All of the other rooms have just been a case of adding colourful items throughout and plants and disco balls," she said. "We use leftover paint where we can, for example the lounge colour blocking.
"We also use sample pots where possible to paint furniture like the bathroom cabinets."
Poppy has taken to social media to document her progress, deciding to do so with the onset of the Covid pandemic. She has since acquired 11,000 followers, though she has learnt that her house is like marmite for many.
"I get a mixed response to my posts," she said. "I get lots and lots of positive people saying that they think our home is so happy and bright.
"I also get a lot of people who like to give the opinion that our house is too much and too bright and it would give them a headache but hey, everyone has to have a bit of online trolling at some point, right?"
