March 16, 2016 Commercial Renovation Post a Comment

Our Third Renovation Project: Dora’s Cups & Cones

We started our third renovation project before we had even finished our second renovation. Only this project was a little more different than the other two.  Our third renovation project was a commercial renovation.  Not only did we renovate a building, we also opened a business at the same time.

Dora’s Cups & Cones was born from the result of one too many glasses of wine, and the idea that our new neighbourhood would benefit from an icecream parlour.  It was a phenomenon which had taken the south coast of England by storm following the opening of the Sprinkles Ice cream store in Portswood, Southampton.

It didn’t take us long to get the idea off the ground. Within a couple of weeks of that extra glass of wine, we had sourced the ideal property.  We found a beautiful double level shop with the most gorgeous glass front.  It was the perfect place for my shabby chic ideas – flowers, bunting, pastle shades and proper dairy ice cream – not that gelato rubbish!

It took four months to completely renovate the property, which we did in the evenings after finishing work.  Whilst Darren fitted a bathroom, new fire doors, and a lot of floor tiling, I had the job of sourcing products, painting dressers and decoupaging stairs (which took me the best part of a month!)  Together with my Nan, I made meters of bunting, using the best ice cream fabric which she had found locally.

Setting up our new business wasn’t cheap, and my Nan kindly lent us some money to get the ball rolling.  In return, she became chief whip/managing director and any other executive title she wished to hold. We also named the shop after her – Dora’s Cups & Cones.

Not long after we began renovation of the shop, we received the heartbreaking news that my Nan’s cancer had become terminal, and she had just weeks to live.  As chief whip, we wanted to make sure my Nan saw her shop, so despite not quite being finished, we opened Dora’s Cups & Cones on April 5th, 2014 – which was my Nans 72nd birthday.

Over the course of the year, we had great fun organising events and taking our vintage ice cream bike to parties and fetes.  We continued to expand the product range, and held lots of birthday parties and baby showers for our customers.  We made lots of great friends, too!

Owning Dora’s Cups & Cones was hard work!  As well as running this business, Darren still ran his own double glazing business, and I worked part time in pharmacy.  After my nan passed away, we wanted to be in the shop less and less, and after a nice break away in January, decided that the time had come to sell Dora’s Cups & Cones.  But after the hard work we had put in, we didn’t want to sell the shop to just anybody.

Within a few weeks, we had a few prospective buyers, with one couple whom we really thought would take the business to a new level.  Just a few weeks later we were handing over the keys to Andrea & Kevin, who now own Dora’s Cups & Cones in her new guise – The Songbird Southampton, and are taking the shop to the next level, after we lost the enthusiasm to pursue.

We had both always wanted to own a coffee shop, which we can now say that we’ve done it.  And with the earnings made from the shop and sale, we’ve been able to realised another dream and have now bought a home abroad!  Our Spanish town house in Pego has become our six renovation project.

** I’ve lost most of the photographs I took of Dora’s due to a malfunctioning iPhone, so I have used some photographs taken by the Sam Pierpoint, an artist who’s work was displayed in our shop.  You can visit her website sampierpoint.com***

March 9, 2016 Home Renovation Projects Post a Comment

Our Second Home Renovation: Thorold Road

If we thought our first home renovation was hard going, our second home renovation, now becoming known as a ‘Metcalfe Makeover’ was in another league altogether! The three bedroom semi detached property which we bought in March 2013 was in a pretty bad state. We actually brought the house in the dark as there was no electric to the property, and I offered the full asking price at the viewing (much to Darrens dismay).

When we returned to have a proper look at the house during daylight hours, we saw the true extent of what we had bought. Our second home renovation project would be no quick flip…..

Our estate agent advised us to offer slightly less than the £175,000 asking price; a previous offer of £172,500 had been accepted before the buyers pulled out, so we did, and our lower offer was accepted. However, the mortgage survey claimed that the property needed wall ties, replacement soffit & facias, guttering and new lintels to the rear of the house and a retention was enforced. We split the retention charges with the seller. In the end, we purchased our second home renovation project for £170,000.

Thorold Road was a repossession, and sadly for the previous occupants, they felt the need to leave most of their possessions behind. We were told that the property would be cleared by the bank prior to our moving in, but as expected, our new property wasn’t emptied. As if we didn’t have a big enough project, the first two days of our home renovation were spent clearing the house (which included an incredible 12 TV’s). Nothing was salvageable, furniture and clothes stank so I couldn’t give it away, despite my initial plans to.

After we emptied the house, we had pest control visit. The mortgage company felt the house had wood worm, and added pest control to the condition of the retention. After a thorough inspection, it turns out the house didn’t have woodwor.  Still, I wanted to be sure there were no other creepy crawlies left behind, so the entire house was fumigated…

We considered, very briefly, to keep the original kitchen in all of its red and wooden glory for a while.  It would have been useful to have the work surfaces, but as disgusting as the rest of the house, we very quickly changed our mind.

After blocking up the backdoor, and replacing the kitchen window and lintels, we fitted a beautiful grey Ikea kitchen with white work surfaces and lovely ceramic butler sink. Most appliances were built in, and except for a few items used on a regular basis, everything was tidy and tucked away. To bring in a bit of colour we fitted a cerise pink roller blind and a layer of pink mosaic tiles over the the travertine edging. Darren didn’t want a splash back, so I spent forever cleaning the back of the cooker.  He didn’t get his own way on the next renovation!

Originally a separate room, we knocked the wall through to the kitchen to create a large kitchen / dinner space. With double aspect windows and a big window in the kitchen, the room was bright and airy. In fact, it was the space we used most in the house; we rarely used the lounge.

Mum had a mango wood table and chairs from gumtree which offered to look after it. The telephone chair also came from gumtree for just £40, but despite my plans to restore it, I never found the time. We bought the rocking chair from eBay for my nan when she was poorly, and I made her cushion to go with it (my first sewing project – it turned out OK). Grandad wouldn’t have it in the house after she passed away so we got it back, and it fitted just perfect in the previously empty corner. Curtains and nets (not only for old people) came from Ikea.

The lounge was the last room that we finished on our second home renovation – in fact, despite the rest of the room being ‘finished’ on Christmas Eve, 2013, we only hung the curtains the day before our first viewing! Because the house was so big, we never really went in the lounge, we were happy enough hanging out in the kitchen/dining space. And anyway, we never could find a solution to hanging curtains in the bay window which we both agreed on.

We created a simple fire place, and decided against having a mantle piece (otherwise known as a space for clutter) with a beautiful mirror – the frame of which we found at the local skip with mirrored glass cut to fit.

Never did we buy a TV stand, an old box was used to hold the TV off the floor, which we probably watched less than 5 times, and the three piece suite, like the mango table in the dining room was on loan.

Matching the rest of the downstairs area, we fitted a distressed look white laminate floor. We loved it, but we were asked a few times when we were going to finish the floor…

Originally the master bedroom (half filled with with a lifetime of possessions) had an entire wall of inbuilt cupboards, covered with a hideous patterned wallpaper to match the rest of the room. As we emptied the rubbish (thrown straight out of the windows) we bashed out the cupboards, and the room was instantly bigger.  We chose this room to be the master bedroom in part for its dual aspect windows, but mainly because of the beautiful views to the right over Southampton Waters and the Dock, where we could watch the cruise liners come in and out of the city.

Together with the entire house, the room was re-plastered and new UPVC windows installed. The walls were pained in our favourite ‘Antique White’ paint and new internal doors fitted. With my Dad a carpet fitter, we were lucky to have posh carpets at trade cost fitted upstairs.

We already had our bedroom furniture from our first home, which we actually bought just before we decided to move, and because of the eight-week wait for delivery, it was never unwrapped in the home it was intended. Fortunately, it fitted in our new home, which was lucky; it cost over £2000 just for the bed!

The chandelier was bought from eBay for just £50, curtains were bought from The Range, and curtain poles with more nets came from Ikea. The room was finished with the washing box which was left behind by the previous owner of our first house, a photograph from our round the world travels blown into large canvas, and a mirror I managed to acquire from a skip.

Our minimal guest bedroom contained the Hemnes furniture from our master bedroom in our first home renovation. Like the rest of the house it was very minimal, with only a bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and mirror, and one canvas on the wall – just how I like it!

Our third bedroom, again with the fantastic views over Southampton water would have made a large single bedroom (it was actually advertised as a double but large single is a better description).  We used it as the office, and had enough room for two large untidy desks, restored chest of drawers and wardrobe, and a filing cabinet otherwise known as a dark hole.

The bathroom was quite possibly the most disgusting room in the house; mouldy windows, filthy fixtures and fittings and a radiator above the bath (why?).  With a large inbuilt airing cupboard, the bathroom was pretty cramped, so we smashed the airing cupboard out, built a new internal wall and moved the bath back which freed up space to move the sink to the back of the bathroom.

We bought all new appliances, including a bath for just £10. There wasn’t quite enough room for a separate shower, so we fitted a rainwater shower over the bath – and moved the radiator to a more suitable spot!  We chose travertine tiles for the floor, and used the same tiles on the wall around the bath, sink and shower area, which we finished with a mosaic trim.  I repainted a Hemnes chest of drawers from the Ikea bargain basement to cover the scratches, and finished it off with crystal knobs.

The open hallway was the one thing I fell in love with when we viewed the house.  When Darren asked why I wanted to buy a wreck the answer I gave was ‘that hallway’.  It was so open and bright!  We blocked up the original kitchen wall and used the dining room entrance instead.  What once was a pantry at the back of the kitchen became a downstairs toilet.  Upstairs, we moved the bathroom and bedroom doors, and whilst we did look a small piece of hallway, the floor space flowed much better.

Instead of buying a new front door, we sanded back and paint the original wooden door.  It looked great, so we decided to tie the colour in by painting the stair banister the same colour.  We weren’t sure that it would work, but it did!  (In the end we painted the garage door the same colour, too!)

Originally, the cloakroom was the kitchen pantry.  As much as I love a pantry, we figured that as we were creating a family home, and a downstairs toilet in its place would be more suitable.  The pantry was just about big enough to pull it off.

It’s perhaps not surprising we had a retention on our mortgage to sort the back of the property out. The back of the house certainly got the weather from Southampton water and was looking a bit sorry when we moved in. After knocking the kitchen and diner into one, we blocked up the single door in the kitchen and installed a larger window and new lintel as per retention (to take in more of the views of Southampton football stadium for tall people and little people on tip toes). We painted the house with brilliant white Sandtex paint, and with fresh guttering and a bit of decking to hide the horrid patio the back of the house looked beautiful!

The garden, or jungle, which it better resembled was the one project which we really didn’t want to tackle. For a three bedroom semi in Southampton, the garden was a very good size. In the end, we didn’t finish the garden – and it didn’t make a difference to the selling price. We saved a lot of time and a lot of money in the garden. Although it looked tidy by the time we moved out it certainly had none of the appeal that the garden in our first home had. We still look back with a sigh of relief that we got away from tackling the garden!  Never again will we buy a house with a jungle for a garden.

(Updated in 2026 to confirm we actually did buy a house with a jungle garden: Honeysuckle Cottage)

The majority of the renovations of our second home were completed within 9 months,  just in time for us to host our first large family Christmas.  Sometimes I wonder just where we found the time to finish these renovations as well as both work full time.  Most days we would be up at 6am and then not go to bed until 12am.  Still it paid off.  Two years to the day that we bought our second home, we moved out, having sold the house for significantly more than we had paid for it, and we were looking for project number five.

Whilst living at in this house we had already completed another two renovations – the Ice Cream Parlour Dora’s Cups & Cones which we had designed, opened and were now in the midst of selling, and and our fourth renovation project, a two bedroom flat that we would be moving into for the interim.  

But in a time of fast and overpriced house sales (which no doubt benefited our own home sale) – it was easier said than done….

Updated January 2026:

Looking back, it was Thorold Road that instilled the love of property renovation to Darren and I have to this day. And, ever since we have juggled multiple home renovation projects, spending most of our married life living out of a suitcase…

February 16, 2016 Home Renovation Projects Post a Comment

Our First Home Renovation: Ferndene Way

The first chapter of Metcalfe Makeovers began back in 2008, when aged just 21, I bought my first home with my husband, Darren.  Our 1950’s semi detached corner plot home ticked a lot of boxes.  There were three bedrooms, a nice garden, garage and parking, and Midanbury seemed like a nice area.  But, having been owned by an elderly lady for over 50 years, Ferndene was in need of a more up to date interior.

The only problem was, we had stretched ourselves to the full with the £159950 purchase price, and we didn’t have much of a budget for renovations.  Still, we threw ourselves into renovating our first home, making use of what we already had, and picking up a whole host of skills along the way.

How we renovated our first home

When we moved into our first home, the kitchen was the original 1950s version – with an additional 1980’s cupboard front thrown in for good measure.  I actually really liked it, especially the larder, so we decided that rather than spend out on a brand new kitchen, we would renovate what we already had.

We sanded back the cupboard doors and painted them with a high gloss paint, and added new handles.  The old 80’s style cupboard on the left came out and made way for a fridge, and on the right we made our own cupboard front to compliment the existing ones, (although I don’t think we ever got round to putting the handle on!)

The creamy coloured worktops were swapped for black ones, and we added a small tiled splash back around the entire kitchen.  Walls were painted with antique white kitchen and bathroom paint.

Originally, we swapped the old brown lino floor for a chequered black and white lino, partly for cost and partly because I thought it might be easier to clean.  However,  we found that it soon discoloured, so after a year of black and yellow lino, we tiled the floor with black and white Umbria floor tiles from B&Q (£10 per square meter) and the bigger squares in a diagonal form actually looked much better.

With Darren being a glazer by trade, we fitted a set of patio doors in place of the window, which we finished with blinds from the range which were less than £20 for the pair!

To make the lounge more homely, we removed the old gas fire and replaced it with a log burner, which was framed with a mantle piece that Darren’s stepdad had made before he passed away.  We kept with the black and white theme, but found some bright red sofas through eBay, to add a splash of colour.  We did soon learn that despite looking good, ‘pleather’ sofas are cold and uncomfortable… They were all we could afford at the time, though.

Upstairs, our black and white theme continued. To update our master bedroom, we knocked away the built in cupboards which instantly seemed to make the room much bigger. The walls were painted in antique white, with a black and white print feature wall, black curtains and black lights shades which we used throughout the house (ikea).  We bought an Ikea Hemnes king size bed, and the Ikea Hermes 8 chest of drawer, which just happened to be on sale as an ex-display model the day we bought the bed fitted perfectly into one of the recesses.   Sadly, the matching wardrobe was slightly too big, but we painted and lined a wardrobe which the previous owner had left behind with the black and white wallpaper, and added a trim to the top to make it match the drawers.  We also bought a couple of spare handles to make it look even more authentic.

To make the hallway brighter, we kept the original banister, but removed the wooden panels which we swapped for toughened glass.  The banister rails were painted with the leftover high gloss black paint from the kitchen.

The one thing I wasn’t so keen on in this house was the bathroom.  Originally designed to be upstairs, the layout was changed at the last minute to make Ferndene a three bedroom house by moving the bathroom downstairs, and as such the bathroom was a bit of a squeeze.  We decided to loose the bath (we didn’t have enough time to fill one up, anyway) and fitted a shower instead.  The green tiles, which I’m sure most of the population of Southampton once had (can you see the chicken?) were replaced by painted (yup, antique white) walls with the shower and sink areas being tiled.

Before the renovation, the house had a small porch and second front door,  which we extended, getting rid of the second front door, and installing a composite front door (again trade price as Darren owns buildmydoor.co.uk).  It made such a difference both visually and practically!  We also dug up the pretty gardens to make a driveway at the front of the property.

The garden at Ferndene was beautiful, obviously well nurtured and cared for.  Something Darren and I had no idea how to continue, and quite frankly no time or interest to do so.  As the house was at the top of a hill, the garden was on so many levels, and sectioned off in a number of places, so we hired a digger and set about to work… (But we did save the front garden, and hoped for the best!)

Five years after moving into Ferndene, a year after completing the renovations which left us with a beautifully finished home, we were itching for a new project.  We put Ferndene on the market in 2013, and within just a few days she was sold.  And we were actually a little sad.

Not that we had time to be sad.  We had a new project to start.  And what a project it was…..

January 28, 2016 Home Renovation Projects Post a Comment

The Metcalfe Makeovers Story So Far

Hello!

Thanks for stopping by.

I’m Victoria and I’ll be the voice behind this blog, with a bit of help from my husband, Darren, who’s a little more wizzy with computers and coding (and is also a tad more patient than I am….).  If you haven’t guessed already, we’re the Metcalfe’s!

I’ve started this blog a year later than I intended to, and a lot later than I probably should have.  As I write this post, we are waiting on the funds for the deposit of our 5th house purchase to reach the solicitor.  Having already renovated two houses, two flats, (and a shop), our next project looks set to be bigger, and better than ever.  And probably much more difficult.  Darren and I have just bought a holiday home – a town house in Spain – a country for which we don’t yet speak the language.  Fortunately for us, there is google translate.  And patience, for which I am slightly better at than Darren when it comes to people….

We bought our first home, a 1950’s three bedroom semi in our home town of Southampton back in January 2008.  ‘Ferndene’ had just two previous owners, and was the home of an elderly lady who had lived there with her husband for most of that time.  As such, it needed a little bit of TLC.  Mind you, it didn’t need much cleaning, the lady had scrubbed so hard she had worn away the enamel on all of the sinks.

By December 2012, a year after we had completed our home renovation, we were beginning to get a bit bored.  We had a lovely house with the most beautiful garden (in which we held our wedding reception) but  after four years of stripping, sanding, painting, and gardening, we had too much time on our hands, and an overpowering urge to visit every DIY and home interiors store!

It wasn’t long before we had found our 2nd renovation project, another 1950’s semi detached house just around the corner.  ‘Thorold’ needed a LOT more work than Ferndene.  The house was sadly a repossession, which had been left in a very sorry state.  It was also left with most of the homeowners possessions (wardrobes of clothes, rooms full of furniture, bags of rubbish – even childhood photographs and degree certificates).  Perhaps making a full asking price offer when we viewed the house in the dark was a bad idea? Thorold certainly wasn’t clean like our first home.

After getting the keys at the end of March 2013, we threw ourselves into the home renovation, and after 6 months we were pretty much done inside – walls were torn down, new ones were put up, and each room (after being fumigated!) was striped back and decorated.  By Christmas Eve, exactly a year to the day we started looking for a new home to renovate, we were pretty much finished inside, which was good timing – we hosted Christmas Dinner for 10 the very next day.

Whilst we procrastinated over the garden, we took on our 3rd renovation project.  A shop.

One November evening, just before finishing inside of Thorold, we (clearly) drank too much wine and decided that it would be a really good idea to open an ice cream parlour.  By December, we had found the desired shop (obviously needing the Metcalfe makeover touch), and, with the house all but done, we threw ourselves into renovating Dora’s, whilst at the same time researching what exactly we needed to  be able to open an ice cream parlour come coffee shop.  Dora’s Cups & Cones opened in April 2014.

Soon we were back to residential renovations.

Our third home renovation came about by accident.  As Darren owns two companies, Custom Design and Build My Door, he was asked to quote an exisiting customers inheritance flat for new windows, but the day before the arranged survey, the customer phoned to say that the property was going to be sold as it needed too much work.  Sensing an opportunity, Darren arranged to look at the property with a view to buying it (not that we could afford to ourselves) and asked my stepdad if he would like to invest with us.

The 2 bedroom ground floor flat, which had been owned by an elderly chap for some time, was in perhaps a worse state than Thorold.  Over 10 years of newspapers were neatly stacked in piles against nicotine stained yellow walls, moth chewed curtains hung at filthy windows.  It wasn’t surprising that Darren’s customer wanted to get rid of it.  And luckily for us, he was happy to sell it for a pretty good price.  We were proud owners of our 4th renovation project.

With an extra pair of hands, we managed to renovate the flat in just a few weeks.  It came at a good time.  After nearly two years of living in Thorold, we we’re getting ready to move on again.  We never really settled in the house. 

Sure, it had the most perfect open plan kitchen and dining room, had double aspect windows in the main bedroom, and was in one of the most desirable roads of the area, with fantastic schools and views of Southampton and the port, but it just wasn’t for us.  We asked an estate agent round to value the house and it’s value had increased significantly.  We put the house on the market there and then, and within days she was sold (we never did finish the garden).  It was a good time to sell Dora’s, so within just a few days of each other, we sold our house and our business, and moved into our newly renovated flat.

As we had sold Thorold before our mortgage term was up, our mortgage provided imposed an early repayment charge.  Eager to ensure we didn’t loose this, we started looking for a new project.  Only, so had the rest of Southampton!  As the country finally recovered from the recession that had hit England just after we had bought our first home in 2008, finding a new project was near on impossible.  Even making offers over the asking price got us nowhere.  In the end, we started widening our criteria, and after a long search we finally found a one bedroom, ground floor flat in Chandlers Ford, about 5 miles from the areas in which we were originally looking.

Our 5th renovation previously belonged to an elderly lady who was moving to a care home.  The flat was clean and tidy, with newly fitted kitchen and bathroom, but whilst the flat would benefit with little bit of freshening up, it certainly wouldn’t be a property that we could ‘flip’ and make lots of money on.  The flat was merely a way of making sure we didn’t loose £7000 to early repayment charges.  Darren wasn’t as keen on buying a one bedroom property, but as soon as we saw it, we both knew that we wanted it.  It felt like home on the first viewing.

Despite both working during the day, it took just two weeks to paint the whole flat, tile the bathroom floor, fit a shower, clean all the carpets, and get new blinds measured, made and fitted.  For now, our little one bedroom flat is the perfect home!