How Two Sisters Renovated a £140,000 Flat ($187,600) Into a Profitable Home With Zero Experience

Eight months ago, me and my sister bought a flat in Dorset. At first glance, it needed new carpets and a lick of paint. In reality, it needed new…. Everything.

We are two girls in our 20’s with no experience and no knowledge. This is our story of fully renovating our auction flat ourselves. And no, not with the help of our boyfriends or dads: we did it ourselves.

With the power of matching overalls, some old garage tools, and sheer determination, we have transformed this dilapidated property - and pissing of the men on social media while doing it.

So Who Are These Budding Property Moguls (Sarcasm Intended)?

Eight months ago, my sister Anya and I bought our first flat- something we thought was years away. This was the most stressful, crazy thing we have ever done.

At first glance, it needed new carpets and a lick of paint. In reality, it needed new…. Everything. Mild panic followed (or major). Then we bought some matching overalls, dyed them pink, rolled up our sleeves and got on with it.

Before I get into the whole, how we bought a flat. Let’s start off with a quick introduction.

Me, Heather:

At school I studied Biology, Chemistry and Maths, everyone assumed I would go into medicine. Two months later I was living in Australia solo at 18. When I returned, I studied Politics and Economics at University (despite never studying Economics before - I just “liked the sound of it”). After graduating, I accepted a graduate position at an accounting firm in London.

Oh wait, no… I moved to Canada. Things followed a similar whiplash-esc trajectory going forward. I returned home started working in a bar, within the year I climbed to Bar Manager of a very swanky local bar restaurant. After a nasty bit of appendicitis I was forced to re-evaluate everything sat for while recovering for surgery, I then left that job and became an Estate agent (that really didn’t last long)! That was last year.

Now? I’m sat here trying to figure out how to put up a fence.

My Sister, Anya:

Anya is my little sister, and sometimes-reluctant accomplice in this journey.

Anya was Deputy Head Person of her school, always the hard worker and model student. She is now studying Chiropractic full time, following in the footsteps of our brilliant mum. She also coaches and plays cricket for what feels like every minute of every day, but it must be less than that. She has wanted to be a Chiropractor for a long time now, being pushed into renovating a dilapidated auction flat was not in her life plan, ever.

We are two girls in our 20’s, no experience, no knowledge, not much physical strength, but we did it.

As young women in this field it has been incredible, and I can’t believe what we’ve learned and accomplished.

So how did we end up here?

Why Did We Do This? Seriously, Someone Remind Me Why…

Let me take you back to May 2024. I was working as an Estate Agent at the time, when we found the flat.

We always knew we’d buy our first place together. Never discussing it; it was just a fact. However, we hadn’t expected to buy our first place so soon, that was truly unexpected, and everything afterwards too.

Anya and I had been living at home with our mum which enabled us to save. My job at the bar paid me well, and as I worked around the clock while I was there, I never had any time or social life to spend the money I was earning.

Anya had had many part time jobs since she was 14, this along with a Government supported fund that was opened for kids born in a certain year by her dad, made up her savings.

We had not started looking for places, but I am partial to a weekly peruse on Rightmove, so I have always had my eye out.

It was then we came across this one bed, ground floor flat, less than 5 minutes from our family home where we live.

We were the first to view it. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, possible pathetic fallacy at play. Anya, Mum and I walked around quietly making polite conversation. I couldn’t nail down the tone of the shared looks between us.

To my joy, we were all in agreement: we loved it.

To our very untrained eyes, it looked ideal!

Let’s rip up the carpets, find some beautiful original flooring, remove the wallpaper, paint, new kitchen maybe, change the layout. It’s going to be perfect. Well, that’s what I was thinking at least.

Mum was thrilled, visions of us moving out dancing through her consciousness.

Anya was understandably hesitant. “Are we really sure we can do this? We have no idea what we are doing?”

Imagine if those two knew what they were in for. Anya would’ve walked away there and then dragging me with her.

So being the driving force, I spoke to a mortgage advisor, ran the numbers, and convinced Anya it was feasible.

We live down in Dorset where property is very expensive, this felt like a crazy opportunity. We felt we were years of saving away from buying our own place, and yet here we were looking at something we could actually afford.

The flat was up for sale at Auction, but we could submit a pre-auction bid. The property was up for £135,000 ($180,900), and we nervously submitted our £145,000 ($194,300) offer. After not too long the Auction house reached back out to let us know that the seller didn’t accept our offer and will go ahead with the auction.

A little gutted but not surprised, we moved on, thanked them for their time, and politely explained we wouldn’t be bidding at auction as we weren’t in a position to win a bidding war with anyone.

What a weird few days - everything happens for a reason, and this wasn’t meant for us!

Until, days later, they called us back.

No one else had bid and our offer had been accepted. What was also revealed in this phone call, the buyer’s premium was £6,600 ($8,844). This is a fee payable by the buyer when purchasing at auction. A considerable upfront cost. Lesson learnt- search for property though Auction Houses with a lower buyers’ premium.

We renegotiated, considering no one else was interested. Then next thing you know, congratulations are in order to the tune of £140,000 ($187,600).

How Do We Have the Time? Short Story Short, We Don't.

Anya’s was nervous about taking on this renovation because, as I have mentioned, is a full-time university student. I brushed it off as I spent minimal time whilst I was at university studying. Turns out she is a very dedicated and hard-working student. So not long into this project, she had to step back and focus on her degree, and rightfully so.

I had left my Estate Agency job after about two months, as it was not right for me. Over the first few months of owning the flat, I picked up three part time jobs. This meant that I could renovate around them, I also film, post and edit all our social media content. I have been verging on burn out for a while….

As the one with a more flexible schedule I ended up picking up most of the renovation work. Anya still has helped whenever she had the time.

S*** Got Real….

Three long months later keys in hand, sledgehammer and crowbar ready, we got to work.

We’d had a survey by then. Now aware that the roof needed work, the guttering and downpipes needed replacing, and the chimney needed repointing. Our surveyor also pointed out that the small lean-to extension would need knocking down and rebuilding. Eek. No bother, all part of the fun when buying at auction - right?

Within a week, the to-do list tripled.

The more trades we spoke to the more got added. Full rewire, full replaster (from the brick), new boiler and plumbing work, new water mains connection, replacement windows, rebuild the porch, new front door, ASBESTOS REMOVAL?! The list truly did go on, and on, and on, you get the picture.

I sent my iPad, generated, floor plans to various builders for estimated quotes. I asked one for a ballpark figure for the work.  “It doesn’t need to be exact, just an idea - £5K, £10K?” He laughed at me. We were looking at more like £30k ($40k). Alright, stop the ride please, I want to get off.

We had budgeted about 30k on the renovation total, so when that one singular quote exhausted the budget we had to PIVOT.

We accepted early on, unless it was something only a qualified professional could legally touch - it was our job. We’ve put on many hats in the last eight months.

Our first triumph was removing a fake stone fireplace with a sledgehammer, crowbar and bucket - saving us hundreds.

We continued to rip everything out - the kitchen, the bathroom and the wallpaper initially. A plumber capped off the pipes so we could pull everything out without bursting anything major.

He also showed me how to remove one of our radiators, with this new knowledge I removed the rest.

When we were removing the wallpaper, it became clear that was the only thing holding the plaster on the walls. So, with a crowbar, in an afternoon I removed it all.

Our First Major Project

The first major job I ended up taking on was rebuilding our porch.

We knew from the first visit the porch was not perfect. There was no door on it, for starters. We got a quote for rebuilding it at £4,000 ($5,360).  I decided to have a chinwag with ChatGPT and got a shopping list. Armed with wood filler and a chisel, I tried to salvage it. Everything was under control.

Days of filling went by, when it became abundantly obvious that, 1 - someone had tried this genius plan before as I discovered more and more old wood filler, and 2 - more of the wood was rotten than it was healthy. This was hugely overwhelming, and beyond AI help. We were going to have to dismantle the porch and rebuild it.

With a little help from a friend, we dismantled it. He directed Anya and I on how to remove the windows, helped put in the main supports and windowsills. Then I was on my own.

I cried, panicked and got on with it. I used the windows that had been left unaffected to figure out what it’s supposed to look like. Built new window frames, measured up and got the glass cut for the windows.

The next panic and cry session came when I collected the glass, and it didn’t fit in the frames. Three. Times. Over. As it’s an old property, nothing is straight. The frames we as you may say “skew whiff “, on the third, go the glass fit. Happy tears this time. After some googling and a tutorial from our builder, I glazed the windows into the frames. Then I painted and voila, we have a new porch.

What About the Rest Of It?

Since then, I have tiled our bathroom, and kitchen, fitted skirting, picture rails, architrave, door latches and handles, caulked EVERYTHING. I have rotavated a garden, ground stumps with a stump grinder (a machine bigger than me) and everything in between.

The end is very much in sight now, we have a small but punchy snag list, but so close to finishing. Safe to say the initial £30k (40k) budget is a distant memory, and with the help of a couple of loans, we have ended up spending roughly 60k ($80k).

If we hadn’t taken on the majority of the work ourselves, I dread to think what it would’ve cost us, Chat GPT thinks at least an extra 10k ($134)….

Some days it’s overwhelming, and every job we take on is completely new. Once you know something it can seem so obvious, but when you have no knowledge or prior experience, it is HARD.

It is draining every day embarking on a new task and having to engage your brain and problem-solve because you have no clue. These jobs are hard enough, and add in not having tools and making do with whatever we managed to find in Mum’s garage, and it gets ridiculous.

Are You Helping Him With Some DIY?

We have been feminists since before we knew what it meant. I was the President of the Feminist Society at university; Anya is Women’s Champion at hers.

Once we knew we would be DIY’ing most of this, I wanted to document it on social media. Showing that girls can do it too.

This for me is such an important part of this journey. It was hugely daunting, having no experience, no clue and no trades support in the family. I wanted to prove we were capable, but I wasn’t sure of it myself to be completely honest.

We started posting, and now have a community of over 70,000 people following along.

Our social media has been found by so many girls who have been so complimentary abut is with comments of love and support, of admiration and pride.

However, we have also had our fair share of internet hate.

I posted a video of me learning how to remove our radiators, unwittingly calling all the tools the wrong names, that really made the men mad. Over 1 million views worth of mad.

That’s what we are doing though, showing the real learning process.  The negativity has spurred me on to succeed. To publicly prove them wrong, showing any onlooking women that it is possible.

The words we live by; How hard can it be? Boys do it.

At every hardware store the cashier does ask if I’m helping a boyfriend, or a dad, with some DIY. I have been stood with my boyfriend, him wearing clean jeans and a T-shirt, me in my paint splattered overalls. The cashier remarked to him “You’re lucky you’ve got a little helper today”. No amount of context clues can apparently help some people’s sexist stereotypes.

What. A. Journey.

Three years ago, to hang my degree on the wall, I used a bottle of nail varnish as a hammer and pulled a nail out of another wall. Since then, I’ve rebuilt our porch, glazed in windows, tiled our bathroom and kitchen, fitted skirting, rotavated the garden and ground the tree stumps and the list goes on.

It has been the hardest, most stressful and scariest thing I have ever done. Renovating our first property in our 20’s making it up as we go along, is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done. I am so incredibly proud of what we have managed to achieve.

I have learnt so much about myself through this process. I am strong, mentally and we are making progress physically.

I now know that anything truly is possible, because I would’ve never ever believed any of this would be.

Aspirational, yes. Realistic? Not.

Maybe I’ll go on my first run soon, something else I never saw happening….

What’s Next?

Live in the flat, enjoy our efforts, relax for a while? Nah.

The flat will soon be on the market, after I have figured out how to put up a fence.

We are hoping that we can sell for £250,000 ($335,000), which should leave us with a profit margin of between £30k ($40,200) and £35k ($46,900)!

Then we will be on to the next, still documenting everything, still learning, still winging it.

The only difference will be, our brother is joining in the chaos.

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