Location is arguably the most important factor to take into consideration when buying a home. Those who are savvy when choosing the right area for their house will not only enjoy better amenities whilst living there, but they will most likely make a bigger profit when selling it on in years to come.
There are certain areas of Greater Manchester that have become property hotspots over the years, including the popular south Manchester suburb Didsbury. With its trendy shops, bars and restaurants, tree-lined streets and large Victorian houses, the leafy village has seen house prices continue to soar due to high demand to live there.
Hannah and Nelson Beaumont-Laurencia live in a beautiful five-bed home in Didsbury which they transformed from three derelict flats. Hannah, 38, spoke to the Manchester Evening News as part of our Where I Live series, where each week we chat to a different homeowner about their renovation journey, the costs involved and take a look inside their home.
Hannah and her husband Nelson, 43, bought their first house together in the sought-after suburb back in 2009. Over the five years the couple renovated their terraced home to a high standard before deciding to sell it and move on.
"Moving just seemed like a great opportunity. Our first house was bedsits when we bought it so we knocked down a few walls to turn it back into one house. When we finished it we knew we could probably get a decent price for it," said Hannah, who was born and raised in Manchester.
The couple knew they wanted to stay in Didsbury and so they set about house-hunting for a good renovation project that they could get stuck into.
"We love Didsbury, it has got such a cool vibe. We only wanted to move for a good project and a good opportunity. I just get really excited about how you can create spaces out of nothing," Hannah said.
"We viewed a house in East Didsbury which needed a big renovation. I was quite keen on it but it was quite expensive and smaller than others that we had seen. It was also hard to convince Nelson because he really liked living in the West Didsbury village, and this house was in East Didsbury."
Hannah and Nelson then came across a Victorian linked semi-detached property that was made up of three flats, and saw potential in it straight away.
"The property was about 100 years old when it was initially built, but it was knocked into flats around 30 odd years ago," Hannah said.
“Because it was three flats there were three kitchens, three bathrooms and three living rooms. There were just loads of tiny rooms everywhere.
"It needed lots of work but we thought we could add a lot of value to it and turn it into a really special home."
The couple put an offer in on the house, but were quickly outbid due to high demand in the area causing offers to go well above the asking price.
"It was on the market for offers over £400,000 so we initially offered £420,000 but then we went back with £440,000. There were a lot of people that viewed it and a few who put offers in over the asking price," Hannah explained.
"The house initially sold to someone else who had offered more than us, but the sale ended up falling through because I think they decided it was too much work, so we ended up getting it which was really lucky.
"We ended up settling on £420,000 when they came back to us in the end."
As soon as Hannah and Nelson got the keys in 2015, they set out to turn the property back into one house - which required a lot of work.
The couple lived elsewhere for the first nine months whilst the initial restructure was getting done.
“One of the first things we had to do was get a new roof, so for the first nine months the house was just a big open space so we had to live elsewhere during that time," Hannah said.
“We ripped out everything, from all the floors to the walls, we took everything back to wooden slats and just started all over again. Nelson and I did most of the restructure of house ourselves which took about nine months."
The pair also decided to put an extension onto the side of the house to create a large, open-plan kitchen, dining and living space and more room upstairs.
“Getting planning permission for the extension was a nightmare," Hannah said. "The planning office actually lost our plans so there was a big delay. We eventually got planning permission at the start of summer and then the work started in August which wasn’t great timing through the winter so it was a bit stop-start at times.
"The existing house had a really dodgy extension put on the back so we took that down entirely when we did our extension. We added a side extension to give us a bigger kitchen, bathroom and dressing room.
"In terms of renovating the original part of the house, we put two new bathrooms in and re-plastered and repainted everywhere. The full build and completion of the extension took a year and a half, so we were living in our properly by June 2016."
Hannah added: "It’s now a four storey house officially with five bedrooms but we don’t use them all as bedrooms. We are only using three of them as bedrooms because there’s only two of us living here so we don’t need lots of bedroom space."
Hannah, who is the CEO of her sustainable clothing brand Beaumont Organic, described her décor as minimalist.
“My interior style is quite minimal. We don’t have anything in the house that we don’t need or love and I’m very conscious of that," she said.
"I wanted it to be a very restful space. We both have busy jobs so we like to come home and have a space that is calming. I’d say it's a combination of Scandinavian and French styles. I love big chandeliers but then I like the Scandinavian minimalism. There is a lot of white because I find white really relaxing to be sitting amongst."
Speaking of where she gets inspiration for her interior from, Hannah said: “I mainly use Instagram and Pinterest for ideas, but when we were renovating someone bought me a lovely book called Simple Living.
"It is all very minimalist with lots of whites and woods, so that was quite inspiring. I just trust my gut when buying thinks I like.
"We just try to buy really nice investment pieces and we spend quite a lot on the pieces that we buy, but we don’t have a lot of them.
“Doing any renovation is a labour of love but I think the final result that we’ve come to is something to be proud of because we’ve put loads of effort in."
Talking about the biggest spends in her house, she said: "We put down polished concrete floor and underfloor heating in the extension so that in itself was one of the biggest spends. We also really went for a beautiful big oven which was really expensive but it is amazing to cook on and we’ll use it forever.
"The baths we bought were also a good few thousand but I think the oven was the most expensive, that was around £5,000 to £6,000."
The house is fully finished internally but the couple have plans to renovate the garden this summer.
"We did the garden very simply initially but as we’ve lived in the house we've just loved the area even more and we’ve got no intentions to leave any time soon," Hannah said.
"Because of that we thought we might as well spend some money on the garden now as we’re going to be living here for much longer. The garden is perfectly fine but it's just not as beautiful as the rest of the house.
“We haven’t officially had our house valued since we’ve done all the work to it but we have a rough idea based off similar houses that have sold in the area. We imagine it would be worth around a million now but it’s hard to tell.”
Walking us through her home, Hannah described: "When you walk in there’s a staircase ahead and then to the left we’ve got an entrance hall which we’ve left open and it feels really spacious.
"You can walk through there which leads into the downstairs toilet, laundry room and cloakroom. Then, if you take a right as you walk in, you go into the dining room and lounge which is all open plan and leads through to the kitchen which is the extension space.
"We’ve got some big sliding doors at the back which lead out to the garden. Then if you go downstairs we have a three chamber cellar in the basement but we haven’t renovated that yet so it’s just storage at the moment."
Hannah continued: "Then when you head upstairs to the first floor we’ve got one of the guest bathrooms which has a really cute gold bath in and then you go around the corner to one of the guest bedrooms.
"Then straight ahead is our master bedroom which has got a four-poster bed, a lounge area, an en-suite and a dressing room. Then you go up another flight of stairs and you have our snug which is a nice TV room and then we have another bathroom and another room which we just use for storage but that could be used as a single bedroom.
Talking about her favourite part of her home, Hannah said: “The downstairs area is my favourite, I love the kitchen, lounge and dining area and how social it is for parties and having friends round. I also love how light it is because we’ve got a lot of windows so it’s a nice bright space for practising yoga in the mornings which I love to do."
Hannah set up her home Instagram account @hannahbeaumontlaurencia whilst renovating the house, which has now amassed almost 40,000 followers.
"I started it around the same time that we bought this house. It was really great during the pandemic and I felt like it was a good way to have downtime and connect with like-minded people," she said.
"It has been enjoyable and it has opened a lot of doors. It’s interesting how people can connect through Instagram. During Covid my followers grew quite a lot, I went from having around 20,000 followers to what it is now in two years.
"There’s always the odd person that’s not very positive about my home but 99% of people are really nice and friendly. I share a lot of before and after pictures showing the journey and we get a lot of compliments."
Speaking about the couple's plans for the future, Hannah said: "One day I’d quite like to live in a farmhouse in the middle of the countryside but I don’t know if I’d be able to convince my husband to do that. But this home definitely ticks a lot of boxes for us and I think once the garden is finished it will feel more complete as well.
“As a city house I think it is the perfect scenario because it’s a good size and we’re close to Didsbury village, so I think our ideal would be to keep this house and then buy something else elsewhere."
You can view more of Hannah’s home over on her Instagram account @hannahbeaumontlaurencia.
Want to get involved in Where I Live? If you are interested in featuring your home in our weekly series, please email your details to phoebe.jobling@reachplc.com.
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