Renovating a house is rarely an easy job and many can face big problems along the way. This was the case for Tony who appeared on BBC's Homes Under The Hammer when he bought and renovated a Cardiff property.
Tony, who is a painter and decorator, bought the three-bedroom house in Cardiff for £148,000 when the property went to auction in May 2022. Co-host of the show Tommy Walsh said the house was "very structurally sound" and other than a lot of decorating and adding air vents to ensure good airflow around the house, there wasn't a lot that needed doing.
With plans to get the house up to scratch and modernised in 12 weeks, Tony planned to spend between £15,000 to £20,000 on the renovation. However, disaster struck when one of the old plumbing pipes burst sending Tony way over budget.
He said: "Four weeks into the build we had a problem, underground one of the pipes burst. So we had to get a fantastic plumber in to fix the problem." Tony also went over budget when he spent more on renovating the kitchen and the bathroom, as he plans to move into the home with his wife.
In total Tony ended up spending £32,000 on the renovation however he was still able to make a hefty profit from the property. While the Homes Under The Hammer estate agent valued the house between £170,000 to £175,000 in September 2022, Tony brought in his own estate agent who valued the house to be worth between £230,000 to £235,000.
If he sold at the top price, Tony would make an impressive profit of £55,000 after renovation costs. During the renovation, Tony transformed the house from a dated and mouldy property into a modern and smart family home.
The outside of the house was transformed with a new lick of paint, new Georgian windows and a new driveway making it a desirable place to live.
Tony knocked down walls and boarded up previous doors to make the kitchen and dining room totally open-plan. He also added patio doors to lead out to the south-facing garden.
The garden went from an overgrown mess with no clear fence to being totally tidied up and having clear boundaries.
And all three of the upstairs bedrooms and the family bathroom were redecorated and modernised and Tony even extended the bathroom into one of the bedrooms to make the bathroom bigger.
Tony said of the end result: "I'm quite happy and so is the wife. I think we are going to be staying here now, we are actually going to be trying it out for a year. If we like it we'll be here for the rest of our lives."
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