Renovation story: Station House

Sometimes readers get in touch and tell me their renovation stories. They're always amazing tales - of battles against what lies beneath (the wallpaper, the plasterboard, the floor...); of working until your bones ache; of extraordinary creativity and dogged determination. 
And they always - at least in the renovation stories you send me - have happy endings.
Your stories inspire me in ways any number of George Clarke TV do-ups never could.
So I want to start posting more of them on "Wreck". I'll still concentrate on showing you properties to renovate most weeks, but now and then I'll post a renovation special.
Like this one.
This is Station House, in Malvern Link, Worcestershire. Back in March 2016, I wrote about a house on a hill and a house at a station. This was the house on the station.

At the time, it was on the market for £260k through John Goodwin. A young couple, Chloe and Lee bought it and, a few months ago emailed me:

In March 2016 we saw the Station House at Malvern Link Railway station advertised through local agent John Goodwin - we fell in love and made an offer on the first viewing. Only days after, we saw that you had featured the property on your website. The estate agent set an unofficial challenge for us to put the property back on the map and give it a new lease of life. Nearly two years on we have made some amazing transformations and are finally able to describe it as “WOW” instead of “WOTW”.  

Lee is a builder, his dad is a builder. That helped, as did the willingness of of both their families to chip in with hard work and suggestions.
None-the-less, when the couple moved into Station House, they were living out of one room, with no hot water, no boiler, and one working light. If that wasn't hard enough, they'd moved in with a baby and a toddler (baby number three is due round about the time you read this).

Those 2016 pictures seem to show a house more tired than derelict, but the reality was a building with room shapes that didn't work and an awful lot of those "battles against what lies beneath". Ceilings that had been lowered were uncovered and reinstated. Floors were ripped up and relaid. Walls were moved. Doors and architrave rebuilt from scratch. A massive amount of structural work was undertaken.
This is Station House now, with two thirds of it renovated.

The section on the left, with the balcony, has been turned into an absolutely stunning holiday let. The bit in the middle is where the family currently live, and that section on the right is due for the Lee treatment next (think removing the roof, "dropping in steels", doubling the height, adding a matching balcony, a new glazed gable end, a hot tub and a massive injection of luxe!).
Here's that "before" picture again.

Lee isn't your average renovator. Notice the new chimney pots? Handmade King and Queen from moulds Lee designed and built himself.

And that renovated stonework on the "after" picture? Painstakingly restored Malvern stone and traditional snake pointing. The stonework and repointing (also called ribbon pointing) took around five months of the 20-month project, with Lee using a fork with the centre prongs removed to hand work the lime mortar.

Inside, Chloe's design skills and that same commitment to putting time into the details, meant keeping the concept of the station masters's house (as it had been) and mixing traditional and contemporary finishes. This, the entrance to the holiday let, is a good example:

A floor made up of 19,000 hand-laid 2p pieces, covered in tough resin, with walls half-tiled in a traditional finish, and a digital heating system controlled from their phones. 

I so love that floor!!

By contrast, here's the more traditional hallway in the centre section of the house:

Elsewhere, light switches hand made by a relative to keep the 'industrial' look in the details.

Yes, that's hubby. I took him along on the interview thinking I might need a technical interpreter, but mostly I just needed to stop him and Lee talking DIY... and talking... and talking ; )

Aside from the hard work and the building challenges, the couple dealt with spiralling costs and architect missteps ("they can end up drawing what's in their head, not yours") - two things most of us who've taken on renovations or builds will recognise. 

And their first quarter heating bill of over £2k was a bit of shock: "We switched on the new boiler and the heat pushed all the water out of the walls. It had to dry out."

The eventual aim is to have a property which will split into three independent holiday lets or combine into a large group let. At which point, Lee, Chloe, Olivia, Ruben and baby-to-come will move out and onto a new project. Somewhere in the same area. Lee's talking about building a house, Chloe wants a forever home "somewhere a bit greener".

I've got this suggestion they - or you - might want to look at. Grade II listed Holly House (below) is detached, with three big bedrooms and large gardens, and needing work.
It's in the village of Lower Moor, just outside Pershore, around 17 miles from them and on the same GWR trainline that passes under their balcony.

On the market with the John Goodwin at offers over £300k. Pictures and details here and here.

Got a similar renovation story? I'd love to hear from you.

Three country homes with land for auction

Three properties up for auction to show you - one of which will look familiar...!
My first pick is one of two Staffordshire cottages sent to me by reader Jill. Hurst Bank Cottage (above and below) is being sold under the Modern Method of Auction.
The MMoA basically makes you pay a large-ish reservation fee (in this example 3.5% of the accepted offer price) to get the property off the market, but doesn't bind you into buying the actual property.
Useful if you want to stop anyone else gazumping your bid while you wait for the survey, talk to lenders, etc. Less useful if losing your deposit (for instance if you can't get a mortgage) would be an issue for you.
Note that it's a fee on top of everything else, not part of your deposit, and in effect you're paying the seller's fees to the agent. The MMoA is becoming increasingly common, particularly with the new online-only agents and auction houses, and for properties needing substantial renovation.
But back to Hurst Cottage.
It's in Biddulph, close to Congleton, Stoke-on-Trent and the Cheshire border. The detached stone cottage comes with around 1.6 acres of land, including a stream and waterfall.

The house has two reception rooms, kitchen and larder downstairs; two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, with tiled floors, stoves or open fires in most rooms.

The location is gorgeous - just outside Biddulph Grange Gardens and Country Park. Although its position in a little valley below the Grange, and with that stream, is a bit of a concern.

On the market through Reeds Rains at offers around £225k. Details and more pictures here and here and pdf here.
Jill also sent in Hockadilla Farm, below. But you'll have to get a move on if this smallholding appeals - Hockadilla is up for auction this week!

The three-bedroom, Staffordshire stone farmhouse comes with around five acres and a bunch of farm buildings.

Again, a pretty location - just on the edge of the Staffordshire Moorlands village of Biddulph Moor.
Two receptions, hall and kitchen downstairs. Three bedrooms and bathroom upstairs.
The agent's details say it's in need of major renovation, but no inside photos to judge quite what that might mean.
There's also a public right of way running through the main gate, over a wall, and down one side of the land...
Up for auction on April 12th, via Wright Marshall, with a guide price of £230k. More here and here.
And finally, Volker emailed me to tell me that Manna House, near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, is back on the market.
I featured the handsome country manor back in 2013, after it had failed to sell at auction.

It had issues then, goodness knows what it's like now! However, it does look like some work may have been started, if only perhaps to reduce further damage:

There are no internal pictures from the estate agent this time around, but this video shows that in 2014 it still had some lovely original features. And a fair bit of rubble.

Manna House is up for auction on April 26th via Savills, with a guide price of £250k. Details here and here.

Two BIG country manors to renovate

I haven't done stately (-ish) homes in a while. Let's go large this week.
Ribbesford House, above and below was sent to me by reader Andy, who wrote:

There are links to Charles De Gaulle as he stayed at Ribbesford House during the war with the Free French. I have a link to it also, as my mum is buried in Ribbesford church next to it. The images don't do it justice as is a beautiful building, there is a stunning avenue of huge conker trees lining the driveway in its curtillage. Wouldn't fancy the repair bill!

Stunning, definitely. A big job needing someone with deep pockets, certainly. But we're thinking big today.

Sub-divided into apartments after the war, the Grade II* listed house comes with over eight acres of land, including private woodland, plus outbuildings. There's also a four-bedroom cottage, currently let to tenants.

Parts of the house date back to the 16th century and the main house includes those two gorgeous towers.

It's in a lovely rural area, in between the Worcestershire village of Ribbesford and the River Severn, and about four miles from pretty Bewdley

Ribbesford House is up for auction on Tuesday, April 17th, with a guide price of £500k. On the market through Andrew Grant. Details, a tonne of history and some more pictures here.

And if a 20-bedroom country manor is bit too large, how about this five-bedroom country home? Newby Demesne (below) has been empty for some time.

The Scottish baronial style house is in a pretty rural setting, about five miles from the city of Carlisle.
The house needs a lot of work, and its current owner doesn't appear to have done much more than apply for a set of planning permissions (approved) to turn the outbuildings into homes.
It's also listed as POA, so clearly someone having a punt and seeing what - or rather who - turns up. These things bother me, my guess is the POA was probably against the advice of the two agents trying to sell Newby Demesne.

Anyway, it's a handsome-looking house that attracted the attention of regular readers Angus and Roger, each of whom emailed to tell me about the property. Roger wrote:

You  might be interested in this set of listed buildings at Newby East, a few miles east of Carlisle. Has the benefit of planning permission/lbc for conversion of the outbuildings to x3 houses, plus pp for a new build on the site of the steel portal barn. Mid C19 house is very impressive, in a Scots baronial style. Price is POA from PFK estate agents in Carlisle but I gather it is low. 

The Grade II listed house comes with an annex and outbuildings - the bits with planning permission - and there's another bit of land available at extra cost.

On the market through CD Rural and PFK. Details here and here, and PDF details here.

New uses for old buildings: a chapel and a "barn"

Couple of properties for you today that need "repurposing".
The first one is a former Methodist chapel, something I see on a fairly regular basis here on Wreck, but it's the location and the original features that makes this one attractive.
Gatehead Chapel is in the tiny North Pennines village of Garrigill, around six  miles from Alston. Once a bustling rural location, even the local pub has now closed down, although the area still attracts committed walkers and summer visitors.

Rear of property and, below, views

 

The Chapel has had planning permission in place since 2010 to convert it into a home, and works have already begun. There's no information on why the property is back on the market - and it looks like there was a previous attempt to sell it in 2013 (at £165k).
It's basically one big main hall and a two-floor extension. The chapel is gorgeous. Particularly the ceiling.

There's designated parking to the front and no garden but scope to demolish an outbuilding to create a courtyard.
Works done so far concentrate on the extension, adding new windows and first fix electrics.

On the market through Red Hot Property at £150k. Details here.
My next pick was sent to me by regular reader Tony. It's not for the faint-hearted and, where it not for the location, it wouldn't have made the cut.
This picture sums it up:

Yes, it's that building with the big red arrow. Nothing else.

Rightmove optimistically describes at it as a "barn for sale". The agent describes it as "A store with fishing rights". 

Let's be clear here, it's a former toilet block.

That anyone could ever have had the nerve to use these particular loos, perched as they are on the edge of Yorkshire's Aysgarth Falls and accessed by steps without a safety barrier, completely floors me. Unless it was a particularly devious bit of local authority tourism planning....

Anyway. Fishing rights and a shelter is what you're paying for. But I loved the creative thought that went into the agent's blurb:

It may perhaps be of interest to an artist or photographer in view of its strategic position in front of the Falls or indeed a small studio for musicians who may be inspired by this unique riverside location.

Up for auction through Robin Jessop on April 10th, at offers over £8k. Details here and here.