After two years of living in a campervan, Maxine Sharpe finally has a place to call her own — now that extensive renovations on a property she bought for just £1 are finally complete.
It all started in 2015 when Maxine, then a postgraduate student at Liverpool John Moores University, was one of the last people to benefit from Liverpool City Council’s innovative Homes For A Pound Scheme.
Initially introduced in 2013, the scheme was set up with two goals in mind: firstly, to bring empty, run-down properties back to life — and secondly, to give people a chance to get onto the housing market.
As part of the scheme, buyers have to agree to use their own money and resources to revive a decrepit house.
The project attracted so much national attention, it was even the subject of a Channel 4 documentary in 2018.
Maxine’s house is the final one of the scheme, and as she moved into the property, she completed a now-thriving neughbourhood of houses that had been transformed under similar circumstances.
‘Because ordinary people have put their blood sweat and life savings into transforming these houses, woe betide anyone in the community not pulling their weight, we are a strong community and I’m looking forward to joining it immensely and seeing how I can give back,’ Maxine said.
‘My neighbours are local heroes, they were there when it was a ghost street, pioneers in the project. I’m the last one to complete and I’ve taken the longest so felt bad for ages, I’m happy to be joining them when I move in.’
The 35-year-old explained: ‘I applied in 2015 as a postgraduate student at LJMU. I lived locally in L7 at the time and heard about the scheme through the grapevine.
‘Although initially I didn’t have the funds, I applied anyway and thought, “I’ll cross that bridge” if I was shortlisted.
‘In 2019, four years later, I got a phone call to ask if I was still interested in a home for a pound.’
She received the keys to the property on February 2020 — told she had 12 months to complete renovations — but Covid-19 threw a spanner in the works, and she was granted an extra year’s extension.
‘It has taken me 27 arduous months to get it signed off,’ she said. ‘It was gruelling, I couldn’t have been more naïve about the process.
‘As a yoga teacher I couldn’t have been less experienced in construction project management.’
She added: ‘With tradespeople in short supply, I took to a lot of labouring myself. I began the rip out by myself.
‘It took me nine months to get the house back to brick with a rotary hammer and borrowed electricity from my neighbours.
‘A hole in the roof meant a tree had taken root, water ingress, asbestos, rat infestations, you name it, it had it all.’
Despite the menagerie of problems, Maxine remained ambitious, and had an architect draw up her idea to ‘flip the house upside down.’
She said: ‘The house, a two bedroom Victorian terrace, was dark and dank. It needed light for my plants and my soul.’
But how did she do it?
‘By removing the loft and all upstairs internal walls I created this double height open space,’ she explained. ‘Add in two of Velux’s biggest sky lights and I had transformed the house in one foul swoop of the sledge hammer. Well maybe more than one, about five skips’ worth.’
Maxine made a lot of sacrifices to get the house done — including giving up some homely luxuries herself.
‘I’ve essentially been homeless for two years, as I moved into my campervan to save money,’ she said.
‘Having underfloor heating is going to be such a luxury, triple glazed windows and a place to hang my plants once and for all.
‘I’ve moved so many times in my life, from Liverpool at the age of six and back at the age of 18, I feel I can finally settle in a house that I brought back to life.
‘It’s going to be pukka.’
Even now, Maxine still has a vision of how she wants her house to end up – and it’ll take more hard graft.
‘I had £60k to renovate the house, I’ve spent £56k and there’s still about £10k worth of work to get it to the standard I’d like,’ she said.
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