It is unlikely that at the age of 36 I would be living in the house of my dreams, mortgage free, but I am. In a house that was destined for rubble, because it was. In a house I designed, and half built because everyone else was too expensive. In a house that I bought for just £1 because it was in such bad condition, I had to sign a waiver to enter it.
The £1 houses came about after Tony Blert cooked up the Home Renewal Initiative, that called for my 2 bed Victorian terraced property to be vacated, emptied, boarded up and demolished. The idea was to sell the land off to a developer, who would rebuild worse houses and charge more for them, thereby aligning the local house prices with the national average. Luckily in 2011 when the Coalition Government came in they cut the funding and my house was spared the bulldozer.
However Liverpool City Council were left with the legacy of 150 empty properties and in 2015 created a novel regeneration programme called, Homes for a Pound, whereby they didn’t have to spend if they gave the houses away and let desperate first time homeowners foot the bill for renovation. I am being a little facetious here, there is no way I’d be able to live in this absolute belter of a house that I’m lucky enough to call home, where it not for the the demise of that once was community.
It was unlikely that I’d be shortlisted for a property because I was single. It was even more unlikely I’d have the money in my back pocket for the renovations if they did. But it was also looking unlikely that I was ever going to own my own home because I couldn’t even get out of my student overdraft at 28. I’m a warrior not a worrier so I applied to the Homes for a Pound scheme and thought, I’d cross that metaphorical bridge/absolute lack of money if I get there.
You’ve got to be in it to win it
Maxine Sharples
In 2023 my house is part of a new community in Liverpool called The Webster Triangle, where the phone signal is worse than the Bermuda Triangle but the neighbours are nice. As I was the last of the £1 homeowners to complete the renovations, my house has garnered a lot of media attention and today, I was being interviewed by a Journalist for a feature about my unlikely home.
My story is inspiring people all over the world, partly because of the misleading headline. My Tranquil Paradise, the Zen palace, my urban sanctuary, my Hanging Garden of Grandeur, did not cost £1, but £60,000 and my sense of humour. I was ambitious in my design and the cheapest quote I could get from a contractor was100k, so I saved money, but I lost too. I lost my dad, who’s money I inherited to fund the renovation. The man who let me down in life but whose posthumous reparations saw me through a 2 year renovation of a house that no one can take away from me, no matter if I pay my electricity bills or not. I’m in a reflective mood so I give thanks.
4 Years after I applied Liverpool City Council contacted me to say I was shortlisted, and not a moment too late as the pennies from heaven had just arrived. I decided I would try and document the journey. My first blog is so full of optimism and excitement. The house was a crumbling pile of bricks, but it was my crumbling pie ‘o’ bricks.
I found myself reading back through my old blogs. I am telling a funny story that is designed to be informative, but there’s 8 months of nothing and I remember that was my low point, which I stoically ignore and continue to talk of bulldozers, builders and my big hairy ginger balls.
So I reflect, laugh and cry as I look back at the most tumultuous time in my life. At the naïve optimism I had when I first started to blog the journey, to the luck, to being quids in at the right time, to the friends lost and found and to those who have followed along.
The first lockdown was spent alone in the house thinking. Using the power of my mind to imagine how it would look if I flipped off the existing living space, and flipped the house upside down. I borrowed light from the roof and forwent a loft for a double height open plan upstairs. My architect was the best money I ever spent because, unlike everyone else that was trying to dissuade me, Andy said go for it.
It was radical but as soon as you step inside the upstairs of my house, it feels like a no brainer.
Insert pics here of your sick gaff girl
I also fucked the job up, because I decided I was going to project manage the build myself. I made lots of mistakes. Due to the economic climate at the time all of the skilled tradespeople went back to Poland and I was given funny looks by those
The joists in my house are not fir for purpose, why did I let get those changed?
Making the backdoor into the garden via my bedroom.
I quit my job too hastily after I received an inheritance and threw £30,000 down the drain having fun, the only way you can during a lockdown.
finish this
majorloveme 