What present did you have from your parents for your 21st birthday? It probably wasn't a three-bed house bought at auction with your name on the deeds.
But when Martin Roberts, presenter of BBC TV's popular daytime property programme Homes Under The Hammer, visited a terrace house in Aberfan going to auction with a guide price of £58,000 the thought of who was going to buy it and why was not at the forefront of his mind.
He was rather distracted by the upstairs layout of the surprisingly well-presented home, describing the three bedrooms as 'wibbly wobbly'. The property started well with the two reception rooms knocked through to create one large and sociable space that is a favourite design for Martin.
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The kitchen at the rear, although dated, was a decent size and led into a downstairs bathroom, fairly standard for terrace homes in the area, plus a back door out to the compact but private back garden.
But upstairs things started to go a bit wonky - literally. Martin said: "Somebody has reconfigured the rooms to give you three bedrooms which is fine in principle, however, it's like they've been playing with the school geometry set because there isn't a square room up here!"
All three bedrooms lacked straight lines and normal angles, replaced with strange shapes and odd corners to try and fit furniture and a bed into - not the most ideal of first floor discoveries.
Martin continued with his summary of each space: "You've got this bedroom here, which is a wibbly wobbly shape, you've got that bedroom there, that is equally wibbly wobbly, and then into this one to create the third wibbly wobbly bedroom!"
Martin suggested the three rooms could be made into two nice sized bedrooms but that then, of course, would drop the value of the house, so wibbly wobbly might have to stay.
But the strange layout upstairs did not put off civil engineer and site manager Jason, who bought it at auction for £73,000 and, when he met Martin at the terrace along with his son Cian, he revealed something about the purchase that almost made Martin's head go wibbly wobbly.
Jason said: "It's to get Cian on the market, it's a present for him!" Martin, understandably flabbergasted, said: "How about that? Wow! So almost a 21st birthday present! It's in your (Cian's) name? Wow! Thanks Dad!"
Jason explained that he's been doing a few property renovations part-time to his main job and thought this would be a good house to hand over to his son and get him onto the property ladder.
The electrical apprentice might have been a novice property renovator, but he spotted the odd shaped bedrooms too, he said: "I like it (the house), funny shaped rooms, very odd shaped, but very workable, I have no complaints. I'm really excited, I cannot wait. I have been blessed with a great opportunity."
The father and son duo said they had a £10,000 budget and six to seven weeks to complete the renovation and, with help from family members, with Jason would be doing most of the work with Cian learning from the project to potentially take into the next one.
The programme returned 14 weeks later to see how the father and son double act had got on. Inside, the house had been decorated from top to bottom including plastering, painting and flooring. There's a new kitchen and bathroom, tidy garden with new turf and a leak in the extension's flat roof fixed.
And the wibbly wobbly bedrooms? No change in there except an extra socket installed by Cian, who also redid the majority of the lights including in the swishy new kitchen. He also installed a new electrical board. There was a delay with the delivery of the kitchen that threw off the timescale and the painting the exterior of the house is still to be done when the programme returned.
And for Martin there's another gobsmacking moment associated to this address - the pair had managed to update the house for half the budget - they spent only £5,000.
The father and son, as well as the hard work at the site, had invested £78,000 in the house, and the property expert who returned thought the house could sell for between £115,000 - £120,000, and now it's Jason's turn to be surprised and speechless.
He said: "I didn't expect that! I was expecting mid 80k to be fair!" Cian is equally amazed, and not just by the estimated resale value but by the experience of the whole project.
He said: "I had no idea what to expect coming into this when my dad told me what was happening, I was really excited and it's come along really well and I'm really happy with what we've done but in the future I would help out a lot more."
The father and son duo have decided, after a break, they will be doing it again, so no doubt they will be surprise Martin on Homes Under The Hammer again sometime in the future.
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