Natalie Hayter and her family have been slowly transforming an 1870s Old Rectory in Suffolk into their dream home.
Although a beautiful building on the outside, the inside was in need of a lot of renovation when they first moved in.
But with all the work to do, Natalie wanted to keep costs down – so when it came to the kitchen, she decided to buy second hand.
It meant that she managed to get a solid wood kitchen for £700, selling the appliances that came with it for £200, meaning it cost her £500.
She paid another £1200 for the worktops and made shelves out of scaffold planks with brackets for £50.
The mum-of-four tells Metro: ‘We have renovated the whole house and so really had to maximise the budget as I knew a bespoke solid wood kitchen would have cost us upwards of £15,000.
‘I saw the kitchen for sale in Ipswich whilst my husband was in Germany at a beer festival and bought it.’
On his return, her husband Oli went to pick up the kitchen and then got to work transforming the room.
Natalie said: ‘It lived in both our bedroom and lounge until we were ready to fit it. It is a solid birch wood kitchen and was approximately 12 years old.
‘We had plans drawn at a kitchen showroom and then bought the largest solid wood kitchen second hand that we could. We only had one issue in that the sink unit was rotten so we purchased an Ikea sink unit.
‘The Ikea Domsjo sink was brand new on Facebook market place for £40.’
They then used some of the offcuts from the work to create shelving and a custom built-in dog bed in the island for pooch Maggie.
Saving a huge amount on the cabinets meant they decided to splash out on the wood worktops they wanted, costing £1,200 and they finished the look with the repurposed shelves.
They completed the kitchen back in 2017, but elsewhere in their beautiful house, they’ve since completed a bathroom transformation, also sourcing a secondhand suite.
She explains: ‘We have also renovated our bathroom with a second-hand suite at £100 that Oli collected from a garden in Woodbridge and spent quite some time cleaning so we could have funds for lighting and quality traps etc.
‘I’ve just found it so much more satisfying and cost effective to source items this way to have funds to spend on the things that people notice like the hardware and worktops.’
Natalie shares the ongoing work in their amazing house on her Instagram page @fromwrecktorectory.
Do you have a renovation to share?
Get in touch at metrolifestyleteam@metro.co.uk.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/08/30/woman-13198424/
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