When Kenji and Sarah Williams-Nakamura bought their Victorian house in Bristol two years ago, they knew it needed work. What they did not know was that the work would still be going on fourteen months later. The family — Kenji, Sarah, and their two children, aged eight and ten — has been renovating the property almost entirely by themselves, working evenings and every weekend to save money.
The list of jobs has been growing rather than shrinking. They have been painting walls, stripping old wallpaper, and laying new floors throughout the house. Last month, they discovered that one of the walls they had planned to remove was load-bearing, which added three weeks to the project. "Every estimate has been wrong," Sarah says, laughing. "We thought we'd be finished by Christmas. Then Easter. Now we're saying summer."
The children have been sleeping in a small temporary room while the main bedrooms are being redone. The family has been spending every weekend at the house instead of taking holidays, and Sarah admits that the stress has been building. "There are days when I just want to sit in a finished room," she says. But she is quick to add: "The excitement has been building too."
There have been real achievements. They have already replaced all the windows, which has made the house much warmer. They have also fitted a beautiful new kitchen — the one part of the house that is truly finished. "When we sit in there and have breakfast, it feels worth it," Kenji says.
This week, the plasterer has been working in the upstairs bedrooms, and they have been laying the bathroom tiles themselves. The end, it seems, may finally be in sight.