Snap Decision

In a matter of minutes, Lily and Col Pickard decided this was the home for them – and they haven’t looked back

- Ifeoluwa Adedeji

Lily and Col Pickard took just five minutes to view their home before deciding to put an offer in, but there was a good reason for their decisiveness. ‘We’d lost out on so many properties,’ says Lily. Although the sale went to closed bids, the couple managed to secure it. ‘Col is always on eBay and his strategy is to bid an obscure number, so we ended our offer with £272 and I think it was down to those few hundred pounds that we got it.’

On the couple’s second visit, the property seemed a lot lighter and larger than they had remembered, but it needed to be brought into line with their tastes. ‘The house was lovely, but very beige,’ recalls Lily, an interior designer at Fox92. ‘It wasn’t very practical, as our son, Ethan, was a toddler and we also have a dog, so you can imagine how long it took before everything got dirty.’