'Our rooms work in HARMONY'

Taking on a whole house renovation gave Lizzie the chance to create the considered, unified interior she craved

- LAURIE DAVIDSON

When I first saw this house I fell in love with its leafy location and the village green out the front,' says Lizzie. 'Plus, it's a short drive from a mainline railway station, which was important to me at the time, as I used to commute daily into London. I moved here in May 2016 and set about making some initial changes.

The house was built in 1985 and had been updated by the previous owners but still needed modernising throughout.

There was a horrible, dirty shower room, which was black with mould, and dark, damp cork flooring. Elsewhere, there were lots of little jobs that needed finishing. The skirting board, for example, was held on with Blu Tack in one area, while other parts had no skirting board at all - the previous owners just hid the gaps with their furniture! There was even a massive hole in the wall under the stairs, which had been hidden with a bookcase.

The electrics needed doing and the plumbing fixing - I could never find the stopcock, which, when the kitchen was renovated, we found had been buried under the flooring.

I'd have never found it in an emergency! The garden was a bit of a mess, too, with rotting decking.

Decorating begins

I did some surface-level decorating initially, removing all the flowery wallpaper and painting the house white with a few feature walls and I did put in a new, cheap bathroom right away. But it was five years later, during Covid in 2020, that I decided I wanted to renovate the house completely. I moved in with my parents, sorted through all my belongings and gave a lot to charity, boxing up the rest. And I sold all my furniture to clear the decks.