Multi-floor West Yorkshire homes to do-up

I was listening to the MP Naz Shah give her very funny and very moving humble Address yesterday. The humble (Loyal) Address is the traditionally humourous speech given by a chosen MP to thank the King for having opened Parliament. It's basically the Brit version of America's Correspondents' Dinner speech.
Shah's passion for Bradford was at the heart of her speech and it made me think about the city and its edges. I've lived there twice.
First, uprooting my young family to move there for my first fulltime job. It gave me my career start and my family the chance to buy a home. Two decades and more uprootings later, I moved back as a divorcee to a rented house in Saltaire, discovering its creative and fun community of independent women.
I recognise the Bradford Shah eulogised, but I think she should have mentioned the hills. OML those hills!! I still have Bradford calves.
So that's where I'm taking you today. I did struggle to find properties to show you that fit the 'Wreck' profile. Partly because big potential + small price is hard to find in cities, but also because the market is being skewed by a dumping of rental properties by landlords and the slowing down of who is buying.
But I've chosen ones that showcase what Bradford can offer in terms of do-ups.
The first (above and below) is a semi in a quiet area of Shipley. Saltaire was the cool artist's town when I lived there; its neighbour Shipley was where you moved when your family was too big for a Titus Salt terrace. Shipley gradually absorbed some of Saltaire's boho vibe and prices have risen accordingly.
This three-bed semi has the hidden benefits of Bradford houses that look small on the outside but are massive on the inside because of extra levels. This one has a house-spanning attic and a BIG cellar, split into four 'rooms'. Actually, I find multi-room cellars scary - too many Evil Dead films.
It also has parking - rare yet crucial for family city-living. The rooms have that old-lady-gone decor that I love. This one giving posh aunt you loved to visit - those dressing tables : )

Main rooms are big and the house (aside from that cellar...) feels light and malleable. The kitchen is desperate to be joined into the dining room; the bathroom needs to be the ensuite and another bathroom moving into that tiny bedroom three and you'd get at least another bedroom in that loft. The garage is a waste of space, it's blocking your garden access and curtailing the drive.

On the market at offers over £360k through Martin & Co. Details, more pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
While we're in Shipley, the same agent also has this six bedroom terrace, similarly over four floors including cellar. Much more of a wreck but very typical big Bradford terrace in its dark stone and tall rooms. Pricey I felt given the work needed, but closer to the centre of Shipley action and rail links.

On the market at the weirdly priced £284,950 (reduced this week). More on Rightmove here.
My final pick isn't actually in Bradford but neighbouring Halifax.
I've included it for two reasons - firstly, Halifax was where me and the kids would get the bus to most Saturdays from our home on Bradford's Horton Bank Top - we loved the Piece Hall. Second, it's on the fabulously-named Bunney Green.
Plus it's a sub £150k house so always worth a look.

It's a back-to-back terrace but your side of the terrace has the benefit of gorgeous open views across fields rather than the road. Albeit parking may be an issue and your garden is basically that little space and its bench overlooking the fields.
It's small - that second bedroom is a stretch at "bedroom" (cover you eyes for that photo..) with limited options for changing internally (maybe turn that second bedroom into the bathroom and the bathroom into an office?). And there's a sadness in the photos and what they say about the final years of its elderly owner. Go write a new story in this home with its beautiful, beautiful views.

On the market at offers over £140k through Reloc8. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

A coastal cottage, twin churches and a prefab - under £150k

The sea is calm this morning after days of wildness. The sky is bluer and cloud dotted, the birds are numerous and vocal. This is a good day. 
Walking Paddy on the beach, up and over hills of sand (leftovers of that wilder sea), I was thinking about what theme to bring to today's post and my ferreting out of interesting wrecks.  
You seem to have liked my 'under £100k' post, clicks-wise, and also my church post. But to be honest, that's not really what 'Wreck' is about. It's sort-of you but mostly me and what properties I find quirky or cute or weirdly-interesting and want to share. Kind of like my baking - often problematic taste-wise but always done with good sharing intentions. 
So, no real theme today, just cookie crumbling.
And I think I'll start here, with this super-cute sea-front cottage, not least because they dropped the price a week or so ago, bringing it under £150k.

Firglen is a semi-detached, two-bedroom, single-storey cottage on the island of Lismore, off Scotland's west coast. It has a garden that runs down to the waterfront and is in a great position towards the end of a track of around a dozen houses, off the exit road from the ferry terminal. You could probably walk there from Oban - onto the ferry, off again at Lismore's Achnacroish terminal, and up the track to the cottage.

The house isn't a wreck, and my apologies for that. It's clearly been painted for the photos and generally smartened up and looked after over the years, but it is small and relatively isolated, given Lismore's scale and ferry dependence.
You enter via the narrow kitchen to the front, with two bedrooms, bathroom and living room running behind - most with those gorgeous sea views.

As an escape pod, it's pretty perfect.
On the market through Bell Ingram at £149k. Details, more pictures and video on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
By the way, remember the island off an island I showed you a couple of weeks ago - Eilean Loch Oscair off the coast of Lismore? That's still on the market (offers over £125k, here).
My next pick is the salt and pepper variety of cookie - definitely not for everyone (possible anyone?) but so, so interesting.
This is actually two properties being sold as a pair - a pair of chapels, in fact. Almost-identical twin chapels in Brecon with views of the Beacons, in fact. For just £125k for both.
There are issues, obvs, underpinning that twofer £125k, but I'll get to those after these pictures.

Each chapel is the same - big hall, grand entrance porch, small vestry for the priest to disrobe in. These were cemetery chapels, built for saying goodbyes, and behind them are the graves of the gone.
Access to those graves is prioritised - you only get to come and go and park nearby. There's also no planning permission, you'll need to chat with planners at the Brecon Beacons National Park (the chapels are on their patch), but I can't imagine they'd rather see these gothic lovelies crumble than be lived in.
They're Grade II listed, which is do-able, but services are limited. Mains electricity to one chapel, but no mains drainage or water to either.
The setting is lovely. In the suburbs of pretty and lively Brecon town and with those views over the Beacons - and your quiet neighbours.
On the market at £125k via James Dean. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.

The final property I'll show you today is a Cornish Unit - prefab to you and me (remember my prefab post last month?).

It's a semi, with three bedrooms and a decent garden backing onto to open fields. This one is a bit more of my standard Wreck property - needs renovating, got issues, but great location and potential.
In the Devon village of Horrabridge, around four miles from Tavistock and close to Dartmoor.
Like my first property, this one has also had its price reduced recently, now up for offers over £137,500.
Downstairs is a large kitchen/diner plus separate utility room, living room, and hall. Upstairs three bedrooms (one pretty small) and the bathroom.

I'm loving those kitchen units.
Front garden has space for a couple of cars (or vans) and the back garden is a bit shed-city but removing that concrete former outhouse would give you options to extend the house.

Being a prefab however, our risk-averse mortgage lenders would be reluctant to step up but, if you've got the cash or most of it, there's a lot of good things here to work with. If you'd like to see what it could be, this beautifully renovated and extended version sold recently.
On the market at offers around £137,500 through Fulfords. More on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
Hang on, just realised there is a theme to this post - everything I've shown you is under £150k. I'll put that in the headline : ) 
See you next Thursday.

Two do-ups with big country views

Scrolling through property lists nowadays, mostly what I'm thinking is: "That was a holiday let... that was a holiday let... that was a holiday let...".
You recognise the look - comfy, cushion-y, antique-y, original feature-y. To be honest, there's a lot of lux holiday let influencing my own home decor.
I see-saw on the issue. On the one hand, there's pricing local folk out of the market, on the other there's tourism spending. But the tax loophole the government closed last year (and probably prompted this sell-off rush) needed tackling, and there are now more refurbished homes coming onto the market for buyers wanting views without the work.
At one stage, hubby and I spent weekends driving Northumberland looking for a potential holiday home/holiday let of our own to do-up. Even starting the process of buying one before fuzzy access rights made us pull out. We followed that by buying a do-up on the east coast, planning it as a holiday let but finding we never wanted to leave. So we've stayed.
Anyway, my musing was prompted by coming across another house we almost bought to let (this one) and all the work that's been done since we saw it. It was cute then, cuter now. I remember a friendly neighbour and a steep walk up.
We did love that area, the North Pennines. Wild and snowy on our visits and big, big views.
I'm going to take you there today to show you two quite similar detached do-ups.
Keepers Cottage shows its roots - a stone outbuilding off to the side of the house used to be the kennels for the keeper's working dogs. Now it has a cute metal gate and space for garden furniture.

Inside the house, some works have been done to make it comfortable for whoever followed the keeper. Central heating, a new kitchen, a bathroom added upstairs, but lots more is still as it was - those gorgeous fireplaces for instance.

There are only two bedrooms (one having ceded space for that bathroom), and a grungy downstairs shower room needs to go, but rooms are a good size and the house sits in a decent garden plot with scope for extending to make the most of those quite stunning hill views.

Keepers Cottage is in a good location, among a handful of houses on a country lane, and about half-a-mile from the pretty and active village of Blanchland, with its historic abbey, shops and a popular pub hotel.
On the market through Anton Estates with a guide price of £250k. Details and more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here.
My second pick also has two-bedrooms and a price tag of £250k, but needs rather more work. This stone cottage however comes with an attached, double height stone byre, outbuildings, and all the views in the world. 

It's pretty remote, a couple of houses nearby in their own private plots, and the nearest place is Allendale (Town) about five miles away.
The attached byre is massive - so much scope there for extending the property (assuming it's all sound) and you've got two other stone buildings and a large timber garage for stores and workshop.

The main house just has the living room, kitchen and a bathroom downstairs, plus a large bedroom and not great (ceiling shape) spare bedroom upstairs. And, OML, what's with the dark wood ceilings?!

You're going to need to be able to chip in a fair bit of cash and time to turn this property into one that's worthy of that location and those gorgeous views.
On the market through Andrew Coulson at £250k. Details, more pictures on the agent's site here and on Rightmove here (including video tour).
All the while I've been working on this post, I've had a earworm. I think it's those big views and thinking about our drives up and up through those vast northern hills.

In a big country, dreams stay with you, like a lover's voice fires the mountainside. Stay alive.

RIP Stuart Adamson.