I saved £3k building the living room of my dreams – it looks so good people never believe I did it myself
IF YOU want to give your living room a revamp, but don’t want to pay professionals thousands of pounds, fear not.
One mum has shown how to transform a room in style, while also keeping costs down by doing the labour herself.
Cheryl Hargate, 41, a mum of four and office manager from Sheffield, ended up doing a huge revamp of her living room after deciding she wanted a new sofa.
After enlisting her boyfriend and a friend to help her with the labour, she proceeded to completely overhaul her living room, changing it from a tired room into a gorgeously luxurious space.
Cheryl was able to save at least £3,000 by not getting builders in and spent £2,500 on the transformation.
Cheryl told money-saving Facebook group : "Honestly, I wasn’t planning on doing such a big job.
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"My old sofa was 18 years old and I was desperately needing a new one.
"I have four kids and four dogs so I wanted a large corner sofa.
“That meant my bookcase had to go so I needed somewhere to put 'pretty things’.
“Suddenly it turned into a massive job. I kept finding things I hated so thought 'if I’m making a mess I might as well do it properly!’”
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Cherly explained the process of her large living room transformation.
She continued: "The process was firstly gutting the room, ceiling down and knocking the main wall back to brick, then removing the old radiators.
“I then had the electrics put in place, the radiator pipework sunk into the walls and the ceiling plaster boarded.
“We then built the shelves and had the whole room skimmed so the light fittings could be drilled and attached to the wiring.
“The next step was skirting boards and painting everything, then finally adding the pretty things.
"To be honest the worst of it was the mess and finding somewhere for everything to go while it was done.
"I really struggle with dirt and germs etc so I found the hardest bit.
"All the things in my room I had before so they didn’t cost me anything extra.
"I used loads of plasterboard and timber from Wickes, and we got new radiators, new carpet and blinds and had the whole room plastered.
"I had all the other bits so I revamped them, for example painting the TV unit.
"I also added insulation in the ceiling before plasterboarding. Hopefully, this will help with energy usage.
“The two radiators cost £340 each from Best Heating, the mirror was £100 from William Wood Mirrors, the blinds were £300 from English Blinds.
"The sofa was from Sofology, the paint was £90 from Farrow and Ball, the throws were from B&M for £60, and the carpet was £300 from a local carpet fitter.
";Everything else I had already that I had picked up over the years.”
Cheryl is incredibly pleased with the living room transformation and is grateful for her boyfriend and friend for helping her out.
She added: “I am very proud of my boyfriend: he’s a self-employed mechanic and did all the ripping out for me and then all the building work such as building the shelves and doing the plasterboarding.
“A friend did the plastering and I did the painting.
“My boyfriend did it without any complaints but got me to promise never to pull a ceiling down again!
"Excluding the sofa, the whole transformation cost around £2,500, with the radiators being the biggest expense.
“We saved at least £3,000 by doing most things ourselves rather than getting professionals in.”
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If you want to transform your home, here is some advice from Cheryl.
She continued: “To save money, plan plan plan.
“I kept changing my mind about stuff and adding things last minute.
“Clear somewhere for your belongings to be stored while you do the work and most importantly shop around.
“My main tip would be to plan everything carefully and measure 10 times.
"It’s lovely sitting in here now, I love it and it turned out even nicer than I thought it would.
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"I didn’t expect the destruction and mess to be as bad as I was.
“Every room in the house has been affected in one way or another so I’m going to have to freshen up those now!”