Most of us are tempted by the idea of buying an old house and doing it up – but how many would be brave enough to do so?
One mom, 42-year-old Lyndsey Gynane, bit the bullet in 2018 when she bought a 3-bedroom semi for £170k.
Despite having never renovated a house before, Lyndsey, of Liverpool in the UK, had big plans for her project.
She waved goodbye to the ugly exterior of the home did it up to add more than £100k to its value.
Lyndsey saw the grey, shabby exterior of the house and knew that this was perfect for her plan: to turn an old house into a stylish, modern family home.
It took her more than two years to get there, with the help of her partner.
The grey-brown pebbledash exterior was first made popular in England in the 1920s – so it’s safe to say it’s an outdated look today!
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Lyndsey knew she had to get rid of the ugly stone walls once and for all, so she whitewashed the whole exterior and added brown wood accents.
The back yard, meanwhile, has seen the biggest transformation of them all.
Originally, the only way for light to get into the property was through double glass patio door and a couple of small, square windows.
Lyndsey built an extension onto the back of the house, fitted skylights to allow the light to come through, and installed a sliding back door that reached all the way from one end of the house to the other.
The grey carpet and tiled flooring that greets you in the home’s front hallway is much more modern and inviting.
As for the old bathroom, it was originally two rooms crammed into one, and Lyndsey knocked down a wall to create enough space for all the necessities, including a lavish tub.
You don’t get many days to enjoy the outdoors in the UK, but Lyndsey’s new garden looks tempting enough for us to layer up and make the most of being out there, rain or shine.
Gone is the overgrown grass, replaced by modern grey tile and an equally modern wood shed.
The front door originally looked past its best; the step was crumbling and the pavement was worn.
Lyndsey built a new, higher step and framed the doorway with large pot plants. The door itself, which she traded for a modern wooden one, is the real star of the show.
There was nothing small or underwhelming about Lyndsey’s transformation. She left no stone unturned, renovating both the inside and the outside of the old house.
The open kitchen and living room is truly beautiful, opening the home up and bringing the garden inside.
As for the grass space itself, it’s now a flat strip of easy-to-maintain turf, set on the same level with a marble-tiled wall around the whole thing.
There’s still plenty of space for her two kids to play, but there are no ugly, overgrown tiles or bare patches of mud to see anymore.
The original fireplace in the living room was quaint and British – but it was also old, and it had to go.
Lyndsey replaced it with an electric fire, and placed the TV in the middle of the room, which makes a lot more sense.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Lyndsey said:
“We’d not renovated before, it was our first time doing it but with the vision we had, we knew we could make it into more than a three-bed semi. People look at it on Instagram and think it’s a half-a-million-pound house, but it’s not, it’s just a three-bed semi in Liverpool.”
Lyndsey’s project shows exactly what you can achieve when you put your mind to it!
You can visit her Instagram page for more before-and-after pics of her new house.
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