A couple from Sydney with limited renovation experience have transformed an old house built in 1983 into a stylish, modern home - without breaking their budget. Scroll through to see the incredible home makeover...
Caragh Welford and Jordan Herrick bought the two-storey house in July 2019 and said they dedicated every weekend to the project for five months.
BEFORE: the 1983 house was dated, old and still had its original carpet, wall trimmings and wallpaper.
AFTER: the couple chose to keep the original floor plan and modernise the design to 'bring it into 2020' by adding light, removing the carpet, painting the walls white and updating the staircase .
The 37-year-old property was originally dark with exposed wooden panels, carpet and timber flooring and invited little amount of light inside .
The pair started the renovation process by brainstorming ideas, gathering inspiration from Pinterest and considering if any walls or parts of the roof needed to be reconfigured.
During this initial planning and demolition stage, the couple also considered lighting and whether any windows needed to be removed or added.
'We pulled up all the carpet, removed the wallpaper and any other areas we thought had to go,' Caragh said.
They also chose to keep certain features, such as the front door, combustion heater and wooden timber floorboards .
Jordan is a plumber by trade while Caragh is a marketing consultant, so the couple said they were 'rookies to renovation' but knew a lot of hard work would be involved. Caragh said they fell in love with the house's high ceilings, exposed beams and sense of 'charm', which is difficult to find in modern homes.
The second phase involved rebuilding what had been removed with new gyprock and materials, including the roof, staircase and any sections of the walls.
'The ceilings alone have between six to eight coats of paint on them and all the exposed beams and original timber flooring was sanded,' Caragh said.
The couple didn't spend much more than their budget of $30,000 for the whole renovation.
Jordan and Caragh rebuilt the walls, roof, sanded back the wooden floors and created a 'floating staircase' .
Caragh said the 'most challenging aspect' of the renovation was updating the ceiling and sleeping on the floor every weekend as they had no furniture in the house.
While the renovation took a lot of work to complete, the couple considered it to be a fun hobby or adventure rather than 'work'.
Earlier this year she also posted videos demonstrating the amazing transformation to popular platform TikTok, and one video has exceeded one million views.
Soon after completing the renovation in December 2019 the house was used as an AirBnB and is a luxurious oasis home to escape to for a weekend.
