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Welcome back to What I Own – Metro’s property series, where we speak to homeowners about getting on the ladder.
Scrolling on Rightmove for fun, Serena stumbled across a rustic Georgian farmhouse that caught her eye. She and her family were living in a new-build in Lincolnshire, but the idea of a project excited her.
Though it was six months before they were able to view it, they ended up taking a leap of faith, selling their previous home in just two weeks.
Three years in, they’ve spent approximately £50,000 on the renovation costs of their historic £825,000 home.
It might not be finished yet, but it’s certainly been a lesson in resilience.
Here’s what Serena had to say about their property journey…
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Tell us about yourself!
I live here with my husband, two children (aged 10 and 12), a dog and a number of chickens. We’re very slowly renovating.
We’re about 12 miles outside of Lincoln in Leadenham, which is a tiny estate village. It’s effectively centred around the Manor House and has been in the Reeve Family for a couple of hundred years.
We bought one of four Georgian tenant farmhouses, which were built to house the farmers. It’s a very agricultural area. The other three are still let out, and the estate sold this one to us three years ago, in 2023.
What do you think of the area?
When my husband Michael and I had our first son, Finn, we were in a two-up, two-down cottage in Bishop’s Stortford, and when we got pregnant with our second, we decided we needed somewhere bigger.
The house prices were extortionate around that area, and Michael is from Lincolnshire. This is our second property here.
It’s in the middle of nowhere, but we’re really close to Lincoln, which is a city. I like that mix. You can see as far as Derbyshire on a clear day.
How much does your property cost?
£825,000. It was on the market for £850,000. The house we were in, we thought we were going to stay there and have the kids grow up there.
It was one of those Rightmove scrolls that led to buying a house like this. I had to convince my husband. The estate wanted a cash buyer, so it took about six months to even get through the door for a viewing.
Our offer was accepted on the condition that we sell our house, so we had two weeks to do that. It was a bit hairy, but we were excited by the scope this place offered.
There’s more outdoor space, and we’ve got outbuildings to develop.
How much was your deposit?
We sold our previous home, which was a new-build, for £625,000. The deposit was around 18%.
What is the monthly cost of living here now, both mortgage and bills?
We budget £6,000 per month for essentials, including mortgage, utilities, car plans, and food. Our current mortgage variable is 0.76% above the Bank of England base rate.
We’re not currently on gas here; we’re on oil. Given the current situation, it’s probably not the best place to be.
What’s the inspiration for your interior decor style?
With this house, I started to find my feet and understand that I’m really into colour, pattern, and texture.
There’s been an element of wanting to incorporate that into a space that has these amazing original features and a real heritage.
If you’re moving somewhere like this, you don’t do it to rip everything out and start from scratch. You want to preserve and enhance.
What work have you done to maintain that period feel?
We’ve got fireplaces in most of the rooms, and we’ve found them in all three bedrooms that were all boarded up and painted over.
There’s some really ornate coving downstairs to restore, and we’ve done the floorboards in the kids’ bedrooms.
When we peeled back the office carpet, we found an original lime ash floor, which is effectively old concrete. We’ve leaned into it and painted it.
All the windows were original timber sash, single-glazed. We were missing panels of glass in some.
We want some double-glazing, but it wouldn’t look right to use UPVC, so we’re replacing those one by one using a local expert.
Which room has had the biggest transformation?
When we moved, we didn’t have a pressurised water system upstairs.
We had to shower downstairs, and it wasn’t pleasant. One of our priorities was to put a proper family bathroom in, so we converted one of the smallest bedrooms.
We’ve now got a free-standing bath in there as well as a shower, and we’ve replaced the window.
Outside has also had a huge transformation, because we inherited a hard-standing tennis court. It had been left to overgrow, so we couldn’t use it.
Last year’s project was taking all that tarmac up, seeding it, building the pergolas, and putting a patio down, which we did ourselves as we didn’t have the funds to outsource it all.
You can learn to do anything on YouTube!
Have you encountered any challenges during the renovation?
I have to slow myself down a bit. Everyone wants to see results quickly, but we lived here for a year before we did anything cosmetic, because we had to sort the boiler out and put insulation in the loft.
All of those things cost quite a lot of money, and you don’t see anything particularly pretty at the end. We spent that time learning how to use the space. The next project for us is our main bedroom.
We’ve been sleeping in the spare room for a year, and we’ve moved our two wardrobes down into an off-room that’ll eventually become a library area.
What’s it been like renovating with children around?
There were times when the children were shoehorned in with unpacked moving boxes around them, because we did their rooms early on.
I don’t think renovations are for the faint-hearted, and I don’t always cope with them well. Even with plastic sheeting, the dust and grime get everywhere.
Living through that, trying to work at the same time, and getting the kids off to school…it’s a frantic tidy-up on a Friday only for it to all happen again on Monday.
How do you balance the renovations with posting content on Instagram?
I want to show off the finished rooms, but it’s important to document the tough bits, too, including the mess, the noise, and the upheaval.
When I’ve had a real tidy-up, and the kids are away for the weekends, their rooms aren’t as messy. We’re in the thick of it, and we’re living it.
I’m having to cook dinner in a kitchen where the handles are falling off the kitchen cupboards.
We’re still cooking on an Aga, which we inherited when we moved in.
Do you plan to stay here long-term?
Yes. I’m really keen for this to be the kids’ childhood home, and something they’re keen to return to when they move out.
Getting them involved in making decisions is important. They’ve loved growing vegetables, and they’ve been helping with the chickens.
Shall we take a look around?
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