Thread by @Telegraph

🏡 Dean Poulton and Borja de Maqua came up with an extreme lockdown project: doing up a run-down 18th-century estate on a budget.

Here's how they did it 👇

The couple, an architect and a surveyor, have captured the imagination of more than 80,000 Instagram followers.

They bought the property in March 2019, with the plan to live in it while doing it up and, eventually, let parts of it out as holiday accommodation

The estate comprises a three-storey Georgian manor house, adjoining servants’ quarters, a caretaker’s cottage dating back to Tudor times, and a gardener’s cottage and piggery, all set in rural Warwickshire.

Here is how the kitchen turned out 👇

They obviously make a good renovation team, which is just as well, as everything from constructing timber-framed walls using traditional methods, plastering entire rooms and even restoring chimneys, has been done by them.

This is the transformation of one of the bedrooms 👇

They are both self-employed, which gives them flexibility with their time: de Maqua spends more time during the week on the house, while Poulton takes Fridays off to help, and they work together at the weekends.

This is how the bathroom turned out 👇

‘We’re doing everything ourselves, so that must feel relatable,’ says de Maqua of their social-media success.

‘People also feel encouraged to give it a go themselves.’

The couple shared their top renovation tips 👇

Two years down the transformation line, work is completed on the caretaker’s cottage and is at the halfway point on the servants’ quarters next door.

Read more and see the full renovation 👇
telegraph.co.uk/interiors/home…

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