DIY professional who has snapped up 4 properties to renovate in 5 years – together with a Spanish villa and former church college – shares the price range secrets and techniques for creating YOUR dream dwelling
Emily Barratt was seven months pregnant and had only just finished doing up the family’s third house when she spotted the hallway tiles of her dreams on Rightmove.
She quickly fell in love and decided to buy her latest project, a historic 1830 property in Lancashire, without even viewing it, telling her husband to put their home on the market that very same day.
‘I said to my husband, “We’re moving, I need that house,” Emily, 42, told The Daily Mail. ‘He said, “We’ve not even viewed it.” I said, “I just know”. I could just picture it at Christmas.’
Thankfully, the mother-of-three is no amateur when it comes to moving homes and renovating, with this being her fourth transformation in five years.
The period home is a far cry from where the couple started out in a little cottage, where they lived for eight years. They then moved to an eight-bed former church school, before snapping up a 1900s semi-detached that took six months to renovate.
Her husband Paul, a director of a French cycling team, is ‘thankfully the most laid-back person on the planet’. ‘He needs to be’, confessed Emily.
However, rather than rack up an impressive bill every time she renovates, Emily, mum to Minnie, 13, Rory, 11, and George, three, does much of the DIY herself and documents all of it at @our_big_renovation for her 198,000 Instagram followers.
Emily had just finished doing up the family’s third house when she spotted the hallway tiles of her dreams on Rightmove and knew she had to have it
Emily talks about the trolls who say she doesn’t even do the work
Their present heritage property came with original chandeliers, cornicing and fireplaces, but it had been in the same family for 100 years and needed a lot of work.
It also only had one bathroom, where an electric heater was hanging over the bath on a single nail, no shower and no central heating, so Emily decided to turn the top-floor box room, which held two water tanks, into a second one.
But her dream of another little bathroom for the family of five soon became a ‘nightmare’. ‘It was the bathroom of doom,’ she said.
‘Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, starting with the plumber telling me he couldn’t turn up to work because his tools had frozen in his van.
‘I was told it was going to take two weeks but by month two, the plumber still hadn’t done his first fit.
‘After two and a half months, I was like, “I’m done with this, give me the tiles, I’m tiling the floor and I’m doing the walls. I sacked the plumber and cracked on”.’ Two weeks later, the bathroom was complete.
Emily was constantly let down by the plumber over the ‘bathroom of doom’ so she sacked him and did the tiling herself and finished it within two weeks
As the house only had one bathroom Emily decided to turn the top-floor box room, which held two water tanks, into a second one but it quickly became a nightmare
Emily, a former accountant and pottery painting shop owner, said that until a few years ago she was ‘useless’ at DIY until she and Paul bought the eight-bedroom former church school
The makeover was so dramatic that it saw her crowned the winner in the 2026 uFurnish.com Home Awards, held by uFurnish.com, the UK’s leading furniture finder website, in the Best Before and After category.
Yet Emily, a former accountant and pottery painting shop owner, said that until a few years ago she was ‘useless’ at DIY until she and Paul bought the eight-bedroom former church school and she sold the 60-seat studio to project manage the renovations.
But just after their move in January 2020, lockdown hit. ‘I couldn’t get anyone in, so I had no choice,’ she said. ‘The house needed doing and it was down to me. It was a very steep learning curve.’
But those hard-won DIY skills are the secret of Emily’s success – she can achieve the look that she wants with each home, at the price that suits their family budget.
A recent win was making over her current home’s kitchen for just £2,500 using oak units from a closing-down sale. She also constructed the kitchen island out of bookshelves and an old tabletop, added a £30 tabletop from Facebook Marketplace.
She’s had some decorating disasters too: she made the decision to turn a shoe cupboard behind the kitchen wall into a pantry only to discover that the wall is a foot deep.
‘Two days later the builders were still drilling and the newly decorated hallway was covered in inches of dust.’ For now, a curtain hides the unfinished pantry.
Posting her renovation journey online has had mixed results – many of her followers are huge fans of her vision and can-do attitude (her posts revealing the garden bar she built from leftover bricks and a sleeper went viral, and her following grew from around 3,000 to 12,000).
They bought a villa in Spain as a holiday home and Emily gave herself a £1,000 budget so painted the tiles on the dated pool, slapping on three coats to transform it into a modern oasis
But she also has to deal with trolls, but she takes a philosophical attitude. ‘They leave nasty comments – “she’s so orange”, “I bet her husband did it all”, that sort of thing. It did used to get to me, but now it’s water off a duck’s back.’
And her critics aren’t holding her back – the Barratts have bought a villa in Spain as a holiday home and Emily gave herself just £1,000 to do it up, starting with redoing the dated pool with blue mosaic tiles and a dolphin design.
Retiling the pool was out of the budget so Emily painted it to achieve the contemporary look she wanted, slapping on three coats to transform it into the ‘modern’ pool of her dreams.
Now with their holiday home sorted, their elegant family residence is still a work in progress but Emily insisted this house is, finally, the one they’re staying put in.
Emily Barratt won Best Before and After Transformation at the uFurnish.com Home Awards 2026.
