A British woman has transformed a rundown Victorian house into the home of her dreams, buying the property for just 1 pound (US$1.27) after it sat unoccupied for 15 years.
Maxine Sharples from Liverpool in England learned about her city’s 1-pound home scheme since she lived locally around the homes for sale. She applied in 2015 and waited four years to be shortlisted.
There were four stipulations as to who could buy a 1-pound home: the buyer must live or work in Liverpool, be a first-time buyer, have enough money to renovate the property themselves, and complete the renovation within 12 months.
In February 2020, Ms. Sharples picked up the keys to her property and was a little shocked to uncover the full extent of the damage behind the metal sheet masquerading as a front door.
“The windows were bricked up so there wasn’t any light in the house,” Ms. Sharples, 36, told The Epoch Times. “The metal from the roof had been taken away. The house was stripped back to nothing ... no heating system, no radiators, no windows, no doors, nothing.”
Undeterred
Nonetheless, Ms. Sharples was very excited. “I had the keys to a beautiful old property that was supposed to be demolished,” she said. “I had an opportunity, a chance, to bring the house back to life. ... I had all the enthusiasm and motivation at the beginning, so I was undeterred by the state of the property.”
Adjoining “terraced” houses were popular in Victorian England for housing factory workers and their families. Most have a typical “three up, three down” layout comprising a living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs, and two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs. Ms. Sharples, who is a yoga instructor and project officer at Liverpool University, decided to flip the floor and planned to maximize natural light for her numerous plants.
“The changes in the house meant that the upstairs would move downstairs, and the downstairs would move upstairs,” Ms. Sharples said. “In the morning you get sunlight in the front of the house, and in the afternoon you get sunlight in the back of the house.”
Using a total of £60,000 (approx. US $76,000) inherited from her father, who passed away, Ms. Sharples set to work. First, she needed to strip the house back to brick to assess its foundations. The process took about eight months, with Ms. Sharples largely working alone using YouTube tutorials since there were no contractors available, owing to the pandemic lockdown.
Next, she had to repair damaged brickwork and begin structural changes.
“I completely took the walls and ceiling from the whole of the upstairs, with just a little help from friends,” Ms. Sharples said. “That took me another several months. ... But because of the lockdown, the condition was extended from 12 months to 24, so I now had two years to renovate the house, which was great.”
Although she struggled to hire laborers due to the situation, she eventually managed to get the leaky roof repaired. Unable to find a contractor for less than £90,000 (US$114, 350) with her unique renovation plan, Ms. Sharples took on the role of contractor herself, quitting her job and living in her camper van to save money. Watching the house start to take shape took the edge off the stress, at first.
She first began renovating the bathroom. Since it’s cold for nine months of the year, installing underfloor heating in the bathroom was key. Additionally, she also put pebbles on the floor, which meant that she'd have a luxurious shower experience. To give the bathroom a more stylish look she chose black tiles for the floor and a matte black tile for the wall.
The bathroom became her favorite place in the house. But that was soon overshadowed by the upstairs when the kitchen was finally installed.
“It was unbelievably beautiful,” Ms. Sharples said.
As soon as Ms. Sharples installed windows on the roof, her vision began to make sense. She would spend hours lying on the floor of her open-plan kitchen for a different perspective.
She said: “I could watch the clouds go by, I could see the sun, the view of the sky when I looked up, and sometimes you need to look up and take hope. ... I could still feel the reason why I was doing this, even though everything else felt like it was crumbling.”
There were many challenges throughout the renovation. One of the major ones included finding toxic asbestos, which had to be professionally removed. Another was high material prices since the UK had just left the European Union. Ms. Sharples was also dealing with a lot in her personal life.
“I wasn’t seeing any friends, and I just had a breakup as well, so I was in a very bad emotional state,” she said. “I was always constantly understanding how much I didn’t know, and it became very frustrating, very upsetting, just to realize how inexperienced I was. I made a lot of costly mistakes.”
Community
With a huge boost from her friends, Ms. Sharples finished her renovation in 25 months, just one month over the deadline. Since she was the last person to be given a house under the scheme, she was also the last person to finish renovating.She and her neighbors are proud to have revived a rundown area and are fiercely protective of their community. The market value of their properties has also increased. A two-bedroom house in the area is now worth double what Ms. Sharples paid for her renovations: around £120,000 (approx. US$152,000).
There are 23 properties remaining in the area, and Ms. Sharples’ neighborhood is coming up with a plan: a community land trust.
“We will try to take ownership of the houses, and as a community, rebuild,” she said. “We would take a house, we would renovate it, and we would make it so that it was below market value and affordable, according to the salaries of people living in this area of Liverpool.”
Ms. Sharples, who is adding the finishing touches to her interior decoration, has gleaned a lot of media attention for her unique home.
“You would never imagine when you walk down my street that you would have such a design like this, you can’t really tell from the outside, so it’s always really nice to have the surprise of people when they enter my home,” she told The Epoch Times. “I think they love the fact that the house was meant to be demolished and that we’ve saved this community in a way.”
Additionally, she believes people love the fact that she’s a woman and has done most of the construction work all by herself.
“It’s not often that a woman gets an opportunity to design and build the house of her dreams!” Ms. Sharples said.
Owning her own home gives her a sense of security and happiness.
“I feel very rich,” she said, “even though I’m just a homeowner of a very small house in a very rundown part of Liverpool. I feel like I’m the richest woman on the planet because I never have to worry about renting, or where I’m going to live.”
