Click here to enter the competition. Terms and conditions apply.

The rear of one of Martin's bungalow projects, before and after

It’s not always practical, nor possible, to remodel your home in this fashion. That said, with the housing market the way it is, more people are deciding to stay put and build on what they’ve got, rather than incur the costs and stress associated with moving house.

The new bungalow is almost unrecognisable, but comes at a cost

The Home Show is a programme founded on this very principle. While architect and presenter George Clarke is usually unable to overhaul the facade of a property, his work on the interior architecture is right in line with Martin’s own aim of creating a flexible, usable and downright gorgeous living space.

A large detached house transformed

Whether or not such a drastic approach to home improvement can prove to be profitable is dependent on so many factors that it’s impossible to give a definitive yes or no answer. I seem to remember an episode of Property Ladder in Poole, in which developer Rebecca made stacks of cash on this type of total aesthetic overhaul. That said, she chose her properties exceptionally well, and was working in a rapidly rising market. For most homeowners undertaking this type of development, the motivation tends to be quality of life and creating a long-term family home, rather than turning a quick profit.

Like George Clarke, Martin's aim is to produce bright, stylish and practical interiors

If you’d like to see more examples of dramatic exterior overhauls, check out our exterior facelifts photo gallery, or visit Martin Swatton’s website.

Seen a great exterior facelift? Want to give your house the ultimate curb appeal? Share your thoughts by leaving comments below…

• A corner of a sandwich (circa 2009)
• Empty bags of crisps
• Enough rubble to construct another house
• Wire casings and discarded electric and plumbing packaging
• A label from electrical wire bought in 1969 (lovely packaging, actually)
• And, our favourite…a pair of men’s underpants, and I assure you they were not from the 1930s

Because so many of our floorboards were not nailed down, we were easily able to find this treasure chest of glamourous goodies. I did not personally fish it out, though my husband did have the honor of removing the delicious looking sandwich lurking under out bathroom floors. No, I made the building company fish it all out before they nailed the boards down as part of the snagging list. The boss was mortified by what he saw as I gave him a sub-floor tour, room by room.

I was not upset the pants, more intigued, really. What exactly went on when we were not here…? A construction site by day, Chippendales club by night? Did we unknowingly have some naturalists working on site?

A little bit of rubble is acceptable, but a lot is not. And food is most definitely not! Underpants? Well, that’s a bit of a grey area. More a question for the pros: George, Sarah, Rich, what are your views…?

Put simply, MyBuilder allows you to post a building job for free on their site. There are over 30,000 registered tradespeople in the MyBuilder community, so you’re likely to get a range of quotes. You can then view feedback from each builder’s real-life clients before choosing which company is right for you.

Of course, the number one bit of advice when looking for a builder is that word of mouth counts for everything. MyBuilder have essentially captured this in a handy online tool.

You can get started finding a builder, plumber, kitchen fitter or any other tradesperson here.

Let us know what you think of the MyBuilder service by leaving your comments below…

We moved in on a rainy Sunday to a house that still needed a lot of work but had a working kitchen, working plumbing, working electrics and doors that closed. All of the necessities. We sat amongst our boxes in front of the large, curtainless windows and took it all in. The house was transformed in to the light and beachy feeling property we wanted, that was for sure. And even though the windows were splattered in (fresh) paint and covered in (old) mildew, we could still see the English Channel churning down the road.

Another far less charming thing we could see was that the original floorboards (that had been in good shape when we took up the carpets) had been mauled by a sander in inexperienced hands. The natural Treatex hard oil we had used gave a beautiful colour to the wood, but the boards were actually wavy in areas with huge gashes here and there. And they were very coarse and gritty to the touch. We had reviewed the floors after the first round of sanding, and told the manager they were very rough, and had been reassured they would receive a final sand and clean before the varnish went down. This had not happened. And about 30 of the boards had not been nailed back down so there was clonking and creaking with every 3rd step we took.

This floor botch job was a small disaster, because it meant we could not let our son crawl on it – the floor was just too scratchy.   He was not happy about being under house arrest (i.e. carried everywhere) for the two weeks it took to get a carpet down in his room, and a grizzly baby makes for a grizzly mom. So when Paul No. 1 came around the day after we moved in and I pointed out the floors, I expressed my shock that no one had bothered to a) check for the smoothness required before varnishing or b) clean them before varnishing. They had loads of dirt and hair stuck to the finish. I was trying to stay calm and cool, but that lasted about 2 minutes. He immediately offered to re-do them but I was not convinced that they would come out right a second time around unless he brought in a floor specialist company which he didn’t seem keen on. So we agreed to take the price off the bill. We are now weighing up whether to hire a floor restoration company (specialists only is my new rule) or lay sustainable and hard-wearing bamboo. We’ve retained almost all of the houses original features, so we’re not sure which way to go.

Now that we’re in the house, and the major work has been done, we can  take more time with decisions like the floors, the wardrobes, the wooden windows that need to be replaced, the garden, the exterior… and have more control over the work being done.

If you are considering restoring your floorboards, and want to avoid the headaches we had, read the 4Homes guide on Restoring Period Features. I wish our builders had.

And then there is what we found under the floorboards, but I’ll save that for next time.

We don’t want to put you off. Oh no. While we’re enjoying our August bank holidays, the 4Homes team will lie back (metaphorically) and think of you all beavering away in the garden, laying a new deck, or up in the bathroom, replacing old taps. However, a word or two of warning. We’ve been told that we Brits pay a massive £1.5 billion to fix DIY jobs gone wrong. Worse still, 250,000 people suffer DIY-related injuries every year (I can prove that – I’ve got a damaged finger from the gardening I did last weekend).

So, while it may seem like a good idea to use the break to do that wallpapering or tile a floor, it’s also worth preparing properly to avoid those DIY disasters. Kensington Financial Management Consultants have rather handily supplied us with some tips to avoid throwing a spanner in the works:

1 Check your tools – make sure they are in good working order to avoid any mishaps. Check that equipment carries British or European quality or standard marks in the manual.

2 Know your limits – if you are unsure of the extent of the job, call in an experienced professional, which may work out cheaper as you won’t have to fork out for specialist tools.

3 Insure and be sure – check insurance policies to see what you are covered for in case of an accident (not as silly as it sounds…).

4 A rushed job is a botched job – take your time and don’t leave anything unfinished, or sharp tools lying around.

5 Finally, from the team at 4Homes – don’t do a thing until you’ve checked out our DIY advice pages.

Good luck – and let us know how it goes – at our Rate My DIY Disaster pages.

The day Lynn (the painter) started, I arrived with my box full of sample paint pots and colour charts and explained the look we were trying to create – breezy, light, airy. We went through the various pots and she painted each one in a chunky patch on a wall she had prepped that morning. She wrote the name of each paint above the patch (in pencil) and we let them dry for about an hour so we could get a sense of the true colour of each one.

As anyone who has painted a room before knows, what a colour looks like on a colour chart and what it looks like on a wall can be two very different things, so I was very curious to see how the test would go.

When the paints dried it looked like a charming mural of whites, greens and greys. The colours I preferred jumped out at me right away and, luckily, my husband had the exact same preferences, so no battle there. We decided to go for Little Greene Linen Wash for the majority of the house and Little Green French Grey in the kitchen. I had not even heard of Little Greene until this project, and had discovered them in a mention they had in Grand Designs magazine where the paints were described as being environmental, chalky and very washable. They are pricy, but so are Farrow & Ball and Fired Earth. (Each sample alone for my short list of brands cost around £3.) And even though Lynn thought I should consider colour matching my Little Greene preference to Crown to save money, I was quite sold on the low VOC and ‘easy to wash’ combination.

Lynn was also worried it would be too watery, as some designer paints are. But after putting on the first coat she called to say it went on beautifully and that there was virtually no smell. And after a few days of painting with it, she let me know she loved it (’it goes on like butter’) and planned on using it in her own house. I have to wait until my trip down next week to see it for myself.

Our site is along a single track road which goes over a little old hump back bridge and through a narrow gap between two farm buildings. It’s a very quiet road and we are concerned neither to cause any damage nor nuisance with our construction work or our subsequent visitors. The roads department was mercifully unconcerned about us adding maybe 30 cars per day to the traffic on the road, perhaps because it currently averages 2 cars per hour, sometimes 6 at rush hour.

That left the very serious subject of ‘access’. Don’t think just because you have an existing entrance to your site that it will be suitable. Regulations cover the design of access off a public road. We had to find a position where approaching traffic could see our access, and we could see them, from 150m in each direction.

On a very cold day in March I assembled on site our architect, civil engineer, environmental consultant and the head of the roads department (Tech Services).

We walked up and down trying to figure out where to put the new access track. In true Highland fashion, pelting horizontal hail started as people commented from their various professional perspectives. In the teeth of the gale, our architect paced out the 150m sight lines to show his proposed position would work and then driving freezing sleet hastened our agreement that a handy tree marked the centre of suitable proposed access. We retreated to warm cars and flasks of coffee and I considered how such permanent marks upon the surface of the land can sometimes be decided so rapidly.

Don’t let anyone leave until you have marked on a plan what you just agreed whilst shouting in a winter storm and if there is no handy tree, do remember to put in posts to mark positions. (It’s a young tree, hopefully we can relocate it successfully).

I can deal with the fact that the interior will probably be a mess for the majority of the project, as one would expect on a full-blown renovation, but the outside mess brought out the Kim/Aggie in me. I showed Paul No. 1 the heap of junk and asked that it be cleared immediately – and be kept cleared. I hope it hasn’t crept back by next week.

The way the project is run is like this:
•Challenger have a project manager named Paul (out of our long list of Pauls, he is Paul No. 1) who is running the works
•Every Friday my husband goes down to check on progress and meet with various specialists to answer questions & provide specifications for things (like socket locations)
•Now that the worst of the building works are over I will also start going down every Friday to review and discuss progress (we decided to spare our baby the stress and noise of the first few weeks)
•Every Monday I have a phone call with Paul to go over outstanding questions we have, and provide answers to questions he has
•Then we contact each other as things come up

So far it’s worked out fairly well, and as expected the first weeks of a renovation are the most chaotic and grubby. Our carpets, kitchen, bathroom and wallpaper were all stripped out in a flurry of dirt and mayhem. Doorways were cut, a redundant chimney breast was removed, steel lintels went in to support the structural changes, floorboards were pulled up for wiring and to lay pipes, a few walls were knocked down – then the sanding and plastering started.

Our house looks like a wreck. But a promising wreck. Our decision to create a doorway in between the living room and dining room has opened up the ground floor beautifully. And the removal of a cumbersome chimneybreast in the kitchen has done wonders for the symmetry of that room.

It’s hard to tell if we’re actually on schedule since there are so many things happening in tandem. I feel like we should be further ahead on plastering in order to keep things moving and unless we have a large decorating team in I’m not quite sure how the walls will be done in time to allow for the floors to be completed in the last week. But I have to trust that Paul No.1 has it under control and that our Friday visits and Monday calls are enough because making more frequent visits to a building site with a baby strapped to your front is very, very difficult due to the levels of dust, grime, deadly wires, nails and noise.