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Homeowner spends £250k turning three-bed into stunning five-bed dream home

An interior design enthusiast has described how she transformed her three-bedroom detached house into her dream home with a £250,000 ‘modernised’ renovation.

Katy Wilson bought her traditional 1930s home in 2015, but set about adding more than just the usual lick of paint when she moved in.

She decided to create her dream home and spent two years overhauling the property with two extensions and a roof terrace.

With a huge, four-room extension out the back of the house, and taking off the existing roof to create another, attic bedroom, Katy doubled the number of bedrooms - and the overall square footage of the floor plan.

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Katy's new bespoke kitchen, featuring fitted units and modern decor. (SWNS)
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A living space in Katy's newly-renovated home, complete with sliding glass doors and new flooring. (SWNS)

Mum-of-one Katy, who says she has always had a keen interest in interior design, added two extra bedrooms with en-suites, an office, a roof terrace, and a cosy 'snug'.

The 80-year-old house in Derby had previously featured just two bedrooms and a smaller box room.

She also added a playroom for her daughter, Lila Smith, four.

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The rear of Katy's stunning renovated home (left) and inside her well-accessorised house (right). (SWNS)
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Katy said she bought the house for £300,000 - but it's now worth £800,000. (SWNS)

The dated wooden staircase and hallway floors were replaced with trendy, carpeted stairs and chic, black and white floor tiles.

And the small, dark kitchen was given a significant extension, with a stylish granite island in the middle complete with a set of plush bar stools.

She also re-landscaped the garden, and completely rewired the whole house.

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The entire renovation in Katy's home took three years, from submitting planning permission to completing the work. (SWNS)
Outside Katy Wilson's Derbyshire home. (SWNS)
Outside Katy Wilson's Derbyshire home. (SWNS)
The bathroom of Katy's renovatrwd 1930s detached house. (SWNS)
The bathroom of Katy's renovatrwd 1930s detached house. (SWNS)

The whole project took Katy over three years, from applying for planning permission in mid 2016, to building work being completed in November 2019, a year after first breaking ground.

Katy said: “The main thing is just to go into it with your eyes open - and make sure to over-budget, as there are always going to be costs you can't forecast.

"Our builders told us we'd only need five skips when we started - but we ended up using 22 skips, at about £300 a skip. It feels a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

"But I would also encourage people not to be afraid of going down the route of having bespoke joinery or furniture made, as sometimes that can actually save you money.

"It's all about finding good tradespeople. We ended up with a really good little pool of people - but we were let down by a few tradespeople along the way."

And Katy added that she hopes her bold home redesign will inspire others to follow in her footsteps.

She said: "We had an idea of what we wanted our home to look like, but all the houses that fit the bill were way above our budget.

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How Katy's hallway looked while it was being renovated. (SWNS)

"But we've had our house valued since the building work finished, and it's now been valued at over £800k - so we've easily made our money back.

"It's not entirely in keeping with the rest of the street that we live on, which is all 1930s houses.

"But we have heard that since we got planning permission on ours, a couple of other young families on the street have also put in for planning permission.”

The transformation has since inspirited software sales assistant Katy, 36, to go into interior design by starting her own e-design website.

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The playroom which Katy created for her young daughter Lila. (SWNS)

From next month, Katy will start offering her services to other people looking to undertake similar home makeover projects, helping them to source materials and find good tradespeople.

Katy said: "This has been a really good segue for me into pursuing interior design, which has something I've always been really into.

"If I could go back in time, I think I would have done some proper qualifications to do with that.

Katy even started up her own Instagram account to showcase the transformation of her home - which has over 47,000 followers.

The Instagram account can be found at @placefortyeight.

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