'We've fallen for our FIXER-UPPER!'

Katie and Stuart took on a tired 1930s house in Shropshire and transformed it into a picturesque yet practical family dwelling that they're proud to call home

- LAURA EWART

Stuart and I were already living in Shropshire together but we were looking to move to a bigger house as our family was growing,' says Katie. 'We had only been searching for a couple of months before we found this house - we wanted a project and a fixer-upper, and that is how we stumbled across this place. To be honest, it wasn't love at first sight and we initially added this house to our growing pile of "no" properties. It just needed too much work, even for us - or so we thought.

However, we couldn't stop weighing up the pros and cons. We could see that the potential was definitely there, especially once we realised we could reconfigure it and turn it from a three-bedroom house into a five bedroom property, so we decided to take the plunge.

Building a family home

After five long months of waiting, we were handed the keys. And with no time to waste, we started work immediately. The day after we got the keys we were stripping the wallpaper, ripping up carpets and removing gas fires.

However, the challenges were more than cosmetic; the house needed a full heating system installed and had to be rewired, so four weeks after moving in, we moved out again! It was only for a week though, as we had no heating, a one-year-old and I was pregnant again.

Starting point

The first room we tackled was Annie's bedroom. Several layers of wallpaper had to be stripped and walls made good before the panelling and wallpaper could be added. I have to admit we went in all guns blazing and didn't plan properly, so we ended up redecorating this room again recently.

Next on the hit list was to transform the playroom, create a room for the impending arrival of baby Pippa and then we began the double-storey extension - you could say we don't do things by halves!