House Renovation Highlights featuring Home Poppy Lane
Hi all! This week I’m excited to be introducing and featuring Lucy @homepoppylane on my weekly renovation series to help inspire you. I’ve been following Lucy who lives in South East London on Instagram for a short while and she has created and designed a beautiful home and kitchen extension.
Here Lucy shares her story from starting this project right at the beginning of the first lockdown and wondering why on earth they were doing it, to sharing a few of her top tips that she’s learned along the way. All are valuable for anyone about to start a renovation or wanting to set up their own home renovation Instagram account.
I would love for you to have a read and to pop over to Lucy’s Instagram where you can see more of Lucy’s beautiful home and possibly another extension that’s on the horizon.
Tell us about your home and your renovation project. What did you do?
We moved into our home 11 years ago, we had always spoken about extending but didn’t seriously consider until our family grew and we needed the extra space.
We extended with a single story side and rear extension which gave us a playroom, dining area and doubled our kitchen size.
During this time my husband and I also self-built a garden office.
How would you describe your Interior Design style?
Monochrome, modern, and minimalistic. I hate clutter and like everything hidden away or in its place but still like it to feel homely and cosy.
What did you enjoy the most about your house renovation?
I loved seeing our dream become a reality, all our ideas and designs all coming together after a long time planning and gathering inspiration.
What was your biggest challenge?
Lockdown! We had planned to move out and go on holiday during the knock through and the really messy parts.
The day they knocked through and our house was exposed to all of the winter weathers was the day we went into the Winter 2020 lockdown.
It was chaos but we had come too far to push pause on it, we had no kitchen or heating so had to embrace it all!
My husband was working at home on back to back conference calls and our 2 year old daughter was very confused as to why our house was being knocked down and we couldn’t leave!
All worth it in the end but at the time I questioned why are we doing this? I can look back and laugh now!
Is there anything that you would have done differently?
We are now plan to extend upstairs and I’m really regretting not doing it all at the same time and just getting it out the way with.
Tell us your top tips?
- Meet a few building companies and get a really good idea of their experience, also check their references and ask to see homes they have worked on that you can drive by.
- Have at least 10% extra money to play with if not more for any unexpected costs that arise.
- Take lots of pictures and videos to document the journey.
What was your best renovation purchase?
The kitchen has made the biggest difference to our home, it’s lovely to have an area big enough now where we can entertain and host.
Would you do it again?
Yes 100% I wish we had done it years ago!
What’s next? Any future renovation plans?
Yes we must be mad…. we plan to extend upstairs with an additional bedroom, move and extend our bathroom.
Thank you so much Lucy for joining my series this week and sharing your beautiful downstairs and kitchen extension with us. You’re definitely not mad to proceed with phase 2. I wish you all the best with that and I’m looking forward to seeing it.
You can keep up to date with Lucy’s future home plans and updates by following Lucy on Instagram @homepoppylane
If you would love to have your your home featured as part of my series, do drop me an email thepramshedblog@gmail.com and take a nose at my last renovations highlight post featuring .
Claire x