Picture: Pexels
Rona Renovation
A lot of people document only the glossy parts of renovating. Not this pair; meet Nadine and Julius, a couple who exchanged on a Victorian terraced house in London at the beginning of lockdown and started an Instagram account to document the renovation as a project whilst on furlough. It is informative, realistic, funny and endlessly charming. In short, it's real and gives an honest and detailed account about what it's really like to undertake this kind of renovation and do it all yourself, from ripping up the front garden to replace a lead water pipe to finding out your joists are rotten and much more. There are inspiration posts too to show what the couple are going for with the final look and through it all, you just want to be their friends.
What have we Dunoon
Picture this; you go to auction and accidentally buy a crumbling, derelict Victorian villa that's been empty for 20 years, because you bid on the wrong lot. The councillors and locals all tell you to knock it down and start again but what do you do instead? Set about on the mammoth task of restoring it to its former glory. That is exactly what this Instagram account documents and, as unlikely as the story sounds, it's all completely try. Cal and Claire bought the property outside of Glasgow, in Dunoon, at the end of 2018 and it's going to be a long road to make it liveable again. Luckily for them, Cal is a carpenter and Claire is very hands-on, so the couple has undertaken this mammoth task together and are slowly making headway in turning Jameswood Villa back into something spectacular.
Renovating Chez Nous
Olivia - co-creator of the brilliant interiors account @blackhomesuk - is fairly far through her renovation of an ex-council flat in north west London. Like most of the others on this list, she is doing it herself wherever she can, including adding panelling to her living room walls and stripping paint from the banisters. As well as sharing before and after shots of the process, Olivia has useful how-to videos for fellow DIYers out there, including how to do her panelling, as well as transformation videos to show in detail what has taken place within the walls. Over in Manchester, her co-founder is also renovating under the account @rainbowrenovation and is quite far into the process.
H Cottage
Tom and Emma are an Edinburgh-based couple who have spent the last three years renovating an 18th century weaver's cottage, and are still going. They are amateurs when it comes to self-builds like this, though one half of the couple is an architect and the other a town planner. Most recently, they've laid flagstones throughout the ground floor and installed a limestone worktop into their bespoke fitted kitchen. In contrast to a lot of renovation diaries, H Cottage has a very minimal aesthetic, showing the process and results in a less chaotic manner than the reality may truly be. They've caught the eye of The Modern House too who quizzed them on how they've achieved their Japanese shou sugi ban charred wood cladding on the exterior of the house.
Pembroke Lodge
Pembroke Lodge is a five bedroom Georgian house in Cornwall that is at the end of its renovation journey and now one to follow for enviable interiors snaps. However, it was quite a journey to get to where it is now and a good deep dive into the account and scroll back through the posts gives some insight into the before and after. The kitchen was a mess of exposed brick walls, terracotta tiles and unfitted units, now transformed into a breezy white and green beauty with bespoke fittings.
Eva Chen
As Director of Fashion Partnerships at Instagram, Eva Chen has a large following on her account, which is mostly used to document the everyday occurrences of her daily life alongside some pretty spectacular outfits. Eva lives in New York with her husband and two children but they have recently bought and renovated a house outside of the city, which they are now in the process of furnishing. Design studio Hendricks Churchill have transformed it into a very elegant and covetable house. Expect stories of brilliant antique finds, glimpses of her Antoinette Poisson wallpaper and Pierre Frey fabrics and many shots of the recently named 'Turtle Island' in the pond outside her study window. The house is yet to appear on her main feed, so you'll have to content yourself with stories, most of which Eva saves as highlights.
The Vitamin D Project
Run by Africa, The Vitamin D Project is another account where the work is done, bar some minor tweaks. The house now is filled with earthy tones, gallery walls and plants galore, but Africa shares before and after posts to give a sense of the work that they undertook to get the house to where it is now. It took the couple 14 months, and they were raising two adorable daughters and gearing up for a third arrival at the time. It may seem stressful, but their house is the essence of calm with its soothing palette and biophilic elements.
Clueless Renovators
In a similar vein to @rona_renovation, but a year into the project, @cluelessrenovators documents the work of a couple ripping out and redoing a Victorian terrace in North London. They are already far into the project with a finished kitchen, garden (complete with a pétanque court) and bedroom. There's more to do and Jess, who runs the account, uses it to share other accounts she follows and recently, be transparent about the cost of renovating.
My Tiny Estate
Couple Dean and Borja are renovating not one house, but four properties that form their estate or 'tiny estate' as they refer to it on Instagram. The enviable idyll is comprised of a caretaker's cottage – renovations on which are almost complete – servant's quarters, gardener's cottage, stables and a main Georgian house that is rather large and very grand. All of this comes with some enviable garden too so in short, these guys will be renovating for quite some time. They are yet to start on the main house yet, which is by far and large their greatest project of the lot and will be something to behold once it's completed.
Rebekah Killigrew
Similarly to @rona_renovation, Rebekah Killigrew and her husband completed on a fixer-upper right at the start of lockdown and have been using the increased time at home to make a serious headstart on turning their hand to the renovation. It's a slow and steady process which Rebekah documents for her followers using #houseoftexture. What sets her apart from other accounts is that her and her family - the couple have a young daughter - are living in the house while they rebuild it.
Ben Alden-Falconer
Margate local Ben is in the process of doing up his dream home, a process which he documents both on Instagram and for a local paper. He's been at it since 2017 and is slowly but surely making progress on the Edwardian property, as he is doing it all himself. As well as documenting the structural and decoration changes along the way, Ben lets his followers know where he sources his interiors finds from me, with a lot of eBay wins and high street finds to inspire your own search.
She's Listed
While a lot of renovation accounts show the process of gutting a house and starting over, Harriet of She's Listed is gently updating an already very well done country house. At first glance, it might seem like the images are of the finished house, but the captions reveal the changes that Harriet has planned to turn the lovely house into her own dream. The Grade II listed Georgian house has had its floors sanded as a start and decorators are apparently booked to come in and make the snug extra cosy. This is a gentle account that makes renovating seem easy, breezy.
Chatêau de Gudanes
Chateau de Gudanes features a whopping 94 rooms, all of which Australian couple Karina and Craig Waters have been painstakingly restoring since they bought the property in 2013. The castle was built in in the reign of King Louis XV and designed by Parisian architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel. This is a massive project for the Waters to undertake, as the building was practically derelict when they acquired it, with a collapsed roof and multiple rooms with no ceiling or floor, not to mention a total lack of heating. The project will take them many more years to finish but for now, they have secured the building, double glazed it and installed electricity, meaning it will be opened to guests in the near future.
Maison Medoc
In 2014, Yolanda Edwards and Matt Hranek bought two adjacent houses in a rural French village (after falling in love there while on holiday with a mutual friend). Since then, they've been busy knocking them together and doing them up as one mega house. Think exposed original brickwork, smooth stone staircases and terracotta tiles. They even share trips to the local brocante fairs to source furniture gold. Heaven.
Written by Charlotte McCuaghan-Hawes
This article originally appeared on House & Garden UK.
