‘It was worth sleeping in the cellar!’

Pip Hough channelled her love of DIY, upcycling and craft into her mission to modernise her Victorian home, which was riddled with damp and mould

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After living through lockdown in a rented apartment with no balcony in the middle of Manchester, Pip Hough and husband Simon were determined to get on the property ladder three and a half years ago and buy their first house. ‘As you can imagine, we didn’t get out much during lockdown, so we had saved some money and were in a good position,’ she explains. “The centre of Manchester was too pricey, so we focused on Stockport, a town only seven miles away, which has great transport links back to the city and plenty of its own shops, bars and restaurants, as well as being close to the countryside.’ They narrowed it down to three properties, and a Victorian end-of-terrace was their clear favourite. “Two were mid-terrace, whereas the one at the end had an extension with a big kitchen-diner, and a converted cellar.” Unfortunately, the end-of-terrace was quickly sold to someone else – but when the sale fell through, Pip and Simon leapt in to snap it up. ‘I think the owners were keen on us as we were actually going to live here and improve it, as they'd had lots of developers trying to get their hands on it,’ she says.

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