'We bought the ugliest house in the village!'

In need of more space for their family of six, Jules and Daniel Axtell-Powell transformed a dated property into a colourful, characterful home

- 

Jules Axtell-Powell and her husband Daniel decided it was time for their four daughters to each have their own bedroom, and they knew it meant starting over. The only way they could afford that was by finding a house with potential to extend. 'We'd been living happily in a nearby town, the girls were all settled at school, and we knew moving locally wouldn't cause a huge upheaval for them,' explains Jules. 'So, when we spotted this house in a village we loved - with a friendly local pub, a great sense of community and just five minutes from a mainline station - it felt like it could work, despite how the property looked!'

At the time, the house was far from pretty. It was a plain, boxy structure with a side garage and lacked the charm of the neighbouring properties. 'It really was the ugliest house in the village,' Jules laughs.

REAL HOME

‘But Daniel, who's a builder by trade, saw the potential right away.’

There was plenty of outside space to extend and turn it into a home suitable for a growing family. Inside, the house hadn't been touched since the 1970s — think pink bathroom suite, woodchip wallpaper, tiny kitchen, dated gas fire and polystyrene ceiling tiles. ‘It needed everything doing, but that meant we could do it exactly how we wanted,’ says Jules.

ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT