Renovating on a $55,000 budget: the home that went from hideous to heavenly

Renovating can be an enormous task, but these two sisters were able to take a tired brick box and completely transform it for just $55,000. Here’s how they did it.

The pool room.

Brazilian sisters Roberta and Fernanda bought their first home not because it captured their hearts, but because they could afford it.

“It was cheap,” says Roberta, when asked why this particular house.

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The home, in Sydney’s Belrose, was indeed a bargain when compared to others in the suburb, but at $1.01million it was a major investment and the sisters and their husbands had to scrimp and save to make the purchase happen.

The pool room before the reno.

Roberta and Fernanda and their families.

First, they took out personal loans to cover their deposit and next heavy mortgages. The foursome planned to subdivide the block and build a second home so the two couples could live alongside one another with their children. But the local council wasn’t having it and suddenly Fernanda and Roberta had a crisis on their hands.

Bills were piling up and they were forced to make the heartbreaking decision to put their home on the market and cut their losses. But nobody wanted to buy it – at least not for a price they were willing to accept.

Property expert and co-host of Foxtel’s Selling Houses Australia, Andrew Winter, says this is not an unusual situation when it comes to so-called bargain properties.

The fact is inexpensive homes are often priced well because they have significant problems, says Andrew. This was most definitely the case for Roberta and Fernanda’s home, he adds.

The Selling Houses Australia team: Wendy Moore, Andrew Winter and At Home’s gardening expert Dennis Scott.

“Firstly, it’s hideous,” Andrew says, when he tours the rundown, flat-roofed ’70s brick house.

“It’s also on one of Sydney’s busiest roads and the floorplan is awful,” he went on to say. “The layout is terrible. This place is dire.”  

Andrew expressed the same views to his Selling Houses co-hosts Dennis Scott and Wendy Moore, but the pair thought they could turn the home around with a few clever tweaks and some good old-fashioned elbow grease.  

Turns out, it can be done. “We will have to work our magic wands,” says landscape designer and At Home gardening columnist Dennis. “There’s very few redeeming features at the moment but I see potential.”

Wendy works her magic.

Interior design specialist Wendy Moore was even more enthusiastic. “It’s very tidy and simple and well, bland. But bland is easy to fix.”

Unfortunately the budget was tight at just $55,000. It’s a large sum, yes, but not when it comes to rebuilding and renovating which is devastatingly costly at the best of times and particularly now with Covid sending material prices skyrocketing. The size of the budget meant the renovation needed to be carefully thought out with changes that made a dramatic impact without breaking the bank.

The kitchen and dining was revamped with new benchtops, freshly-sprayed cabinet doors and updated hardware.

SMART MOVES

First port of call, creating a warm and welcoming entryway and reconfiguring the layout of the home. This is done on the cheap with the addition of a single wall and the introduction of a doorway to an internal wall.  

These two simple changes create a home office space and a more organic feeling layout with the entryway turned into a mudroom leading directly into the lounge area. The dated kitchen is modernised with cabinet doors resprayed in a bold blue and modern hardware added. A crisp white stone benchtop is the icing on the cake. Plumbing and electrics remain as they are to ensure costs are kept low.

A formal dining room is established with a bold wallpaper covering a single wall for effect.

A light-filled bedroom.

“It’s welcoming,” says Wendy, of the feature.

There’s no money to cover new bathroom fit-outs and so bold designer floor tiles are laid over the existing ones and VJ wall panels and a new vanity are installed. Fresh paint is applied in every room while sheer blinds are added to obscure the busy road just outside. It’s here the more dramatic work is carried out. A pedestrian gate is installed to make entering the block easier. A circular driveway designed so that cars can enter the property and drive out again safely despite the hectic traffic.

 Concrete pathways are removed and replaced with soft turf, the pool is brought up to code with a sleek glass fence and, in a stroke of genius, the broken spa is filled with soil and becomes a miniature feature garden. On a return visit Andrew declares the home and yard now perfect for a young family, genuinely astounded that the results were achieved for just $55,000.

The pool was refreshed too.

“The floorplan now makes sense and the home feels warm and inviting,” he says.

“It’s quiet and peaceful, and the owners have not overcapitalised.”

 Best of all, the market reflected this with the refreshed five-bedder selling just three weeks later for an impressive $1.823million. Andrew described the property as a “big mistake that in the end turned out to be a smart move”.

Foxtel’s Selling Houses Australia screens on Wednesdays at 8.30pm