A tired two-bed terrace taken from somebody else’s decorating taste to a clean, rewired, replastered rental in one run of work.
Project · Snapshot
A buy to let refurbishment in Stoke-on-Trent, taken on for a landlord who wanted the property turned round and let rather than lived in. Full strip-out, rewire, replaster, new kitchen and boiler, then decorated and carpeted throughout. The kind of property refurbishment that decides whether a buy-to-let works as an investment or becomes a running repair job.
Project · The Story
The same three questions we ask every project: what they bought, what we did, what changed. Honest. Specific. No marketing fluff.
A two-bedroom terrace in Stoke-on-Trent that had been decorated hard by whoever lived in it last. A red lounge with a fake brick chimney breast, brick-effect paper in the back room, a blue geometric feature wall painted straight onto plaster, and a kitchen that had done its time.
None of that is a structural problem, and it is worth saying so plainly: paint is cheap to change. What made this a proper refurbishment rather than a redecoration was what sat behind it.
The house came back to bare brick where it needed to, and everything soft came out: paper, plaster, carpets, kitchen.
With the walls open we rewired the property in full, including a new consumer unit, because the existing installation was not something to hand a tenant. Woodworm turned up in timber during the strip-out, which is exactly what a contingency is for on a buy-to-let, and it was treated rather than covered over.
Then back up: replastered throughout, new kitchen, new boiler, new internal and front doors, decorated and carpeted.
It went from a property that would have needed a tenant with imagination to one that lets on its condition. White walls, clean carpet, a kitchen that works and an electrical installation nobody has to worry about.
That is the whole argument for doing a buy to let refurbishment properly in one run rather than in instalments between tenancies. The disruption happens once, while the property is empty and earning nothing, instead of repeatedly while somebody is living in it.
Refurbishment · Stoke-on-Trent
A buy to let refurbishment in Stoke-on-Trent, taken on for a landlord who wanted the property turned round and let rather than lived in. Full strip-out, rewire, replaster, new kitchen and boiler, then decorated and carpeted throughout. The kind of property refurbishment that decides whether a buy-to-let works as an investment or becomes a running repair job.
Heavily decorated, dated, and tired rather than derelict. A red lounge, a painted feature wall, brick-effect paper and an old kitchen.
On a buy-to-let the temptation here is to paint over it and put it on the market. That works right up until the first tenant reports something, and then you are doing the job anyway with somebody living in the house.
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Plaster, paper, carpets and kitchen out. Where the walls needed to come back to brick, they did.
With the house open we put in a full rewire and a new consumer unit. This is the stage that never appears in a finished-property photograph and is the reason the refurbishment was worth doing: nobody buys a rental for the wiring, and everybody inherits it.
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Replastered throughout, then the kitchen and boiler in.
This is the point on a refurbishment where it stops looking like a building site and starts looking like a house again, and it is also the point where rushing costs you. Plaster gets its drying time before anything goes on it.
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Decorated, carpeted, new internal doors and a new front door.
Deliberately plain. A rental wants to be clean, neutral and hard to damage, not styled. Every surface in here is one a landlord can touch up between tenancies without matching somebody else’s taste.
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On camera · Watch the build
Every HYPE build is documented on camera. The videos from this project sit at the top. Below them: three of John’s most-watched videos from HypeTV.
More from HypeTV
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Get in touch. Honest answer. No hard sell.
A quick call with the team to see if HYPE is the right contractor for your build. If we are not the right fit, we refer you to a builder we trust.
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Extensions, lofts & refurbishment
