Every home has a story and this one, which has just featured on television, is one of depression and drama thwarted by colour, artwork and family spaces to enjoy
Appearing on a television programme where three judges step inside your home and analyse it and compare it to other properties might seem like a daunting proposition but every year people across Wales start on that TV star journey.
The destination is the popular and binge-worthy BBC Cymru Wales series Wales’ Home of the Year. The programme follows the judges, who are not scary at all, are presenter Owain Wyn Evans, architect Glen Thomas and designer Mandy Watkins around some of Wales most enchanting abode in each region to compete in the final to be crowned of Wales’ Home of the Year’
This year’s series began on Thursday, June 11, and the winner of the first episode is Sera and Ian’s colourful and welcoming ex-council house near Aberystwyth – but it’s a house that has become more than a home, through trauma and health issues, it’s become the couple’s sanctuary. For more property stories sent to your inbox twice a week sign up to the property newsletter here.
READ MORE: Time warp house with incredible interiors is like stepping into the past
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: Wales’ Home of the Year 2024 winner went on a stag do and came home to find his home on the TV
Sera says: “My husband had a heart attack in the February of the year we inherited the house, so it was left to me to finish everything. But I did get some help in from a really great guy called Darren, one of my friend’s step-dads who really helped me over the finish line.
“He was amazing, he helped so much because we didn’t have a proper working downstairs toilet for Ian, as he couldn’t, at that time, manage the stairs. So he really pulled out the bag for me, including tiling the floors and plumbing, because it’s those things Ian would have normally had done himself.”
While Darren got to work, Sera constructed the banquette seating in the sociable dining area as well as tacking the garden, which she says had six layers of patio slabs that she had to attack with a hammer drill and filled up six skips.
Even with all this team working hard on finishing the transformation, the day before the TV crew arrived the house was still not ready – Sera was still painting, her supportive friend was frantically cleaning, and there was still tidying to do including an open-shelving glass kitchen cabinet that the judges were so impressed to find.
The house was known to the couple as it was Ian’s family home where he grew up and bursting with childhood memories. When his mother sadly passed away, it wasn’t far to move as the couple were living in rented accommodation across the street to assist with Ian’s aging parents.
When they moved in, the house was a vision in 1980s peach – a colour that made Ian’s mum feel happy and although not to Sera’s taste she is very understanding of that scenario because she says diving into colour has substantially helped her battle depression, but it was her best friend that started the colour wheel spinning.
Sera explains: “So everything in the house before we moved was very dark and very eclectic and at that point my depression was really bad. Even everything I wore was black because my whole outlook on life was very dark. She came into the house and said ‘it’s no wonder you feel like this, you’re living in a flipping cave!’.
“I felt very low at the time and it’s very hard to see beyond that until someone says something, I mean, ha, I was a bit offended at the time but now I’m thankful because I thought about it and she was completely right, so that’s when I started researching colour as a therapy, as well as going for therapy too.
The result is a home where Sera feels cocooned, uplifted and happy. She says: “So you can create a home that makes you feel comfortable with colours that have a positive effect on you, make you feel better and mine was down to a lot of reading up on colour therapy.”
The use of colour, pattern and moments of visual delight inside Sera’s house was what really appealed to the judges and resulted in the couple’s house winning the Mid Wales and Valleys regional heat to go through to the grand final at the end of the series, due to aired on
From the garden gate this standard ex-council house sings its true colours of being inviting, offering a welcoming ambience, and hugging every single visitor, and that starts even in the front garden where the couple have constructed a very inviting pergola seating area where Sera says friends passing usually pop in and join them at the table.
Sera enjoys thinking about and investigating interior design and says you don’t have to even be any good at it, as long as your home makes you happy.
“Even from a young age, I would move my bedroom around as much as possible, and my parents were like, ‘what you up to now?!’ And I advise anyone to jump into it, you don’t have to make a profession out of it, for me it’s a hobby. I like to move things about. I like to change things up a bit. And I think you can be open to change, things will develop and change over time anyway.”
When the couple moved in they white-washed the whole house to get a feel for the space, light and atmosphere and then the transformation began and went at full throttle.
Sera laughs: “I didn’t do it room by room, I’m not sensible like that, I went full-blown in and, you know, trashed the whole house, but yeah, no, I’m an all or nothing person. I definitely knew I needed to change things, like we put the patio doors in because it was always very dark and I knew I wanted glass doors, I didn’t want the internal doors to feel like a block.”
One of the features pointed out by the judges was the glass fronted cupboard in the kitchen. Sera says when they moved in the kitchen was tiny and had a pantry and ‘pram parking space’ where years ago a baby’s large and bulky pram could be stored.
The cramped areas all went to create a larger space and the result is an uplifting galley kitchen featuring fresh white, natural textures, Sera’s favourite patio doors and her favourite colour; green.
Although the palette is varied inside Sera and Ian’s home it centres around core colours with varying tones and shades throughout peppered with ‘pops’ of colour. Many people begin a room’s scheme, or overall style for a house, by being inspired by an item and for Sera it’s artwork, which you see featured in every space.
Another feature highlighted in the programme was the banquette seating which Sera made herself under the watchful eye and guidance of the still recovering Ian, and it is her favourite area of the house, where she can gather with her family, her sister and her sister’s grandchildren.
The bathroom added to the judge’s comments, especially the bath angled across the corner with a massive banana plant creating a bending and cocooning hood over the water, making the occupant feel like they are bathing in a tropical pond.
Although this sounds fantastically creative Sera reveals the secret – it was the only way to fit in a shower, a toilet and a bath and still be able to open the door! But this inspiring yet modest woman with a talent for interiors has made a stand-out feature from a head-scratching space problem.
She says: “People say, ‘oh it’s wonderful, it’s amazing’ but it’s just a small council house, just like the thousands of council houses across the country. But I’ve learned so much doing this, so I hope I can inspire others to see what a council house can be and can show you don’t need a huge budget, you just need things that uplift you and colours that make you feel happy within your little tiny, weeny little home.”
Episode one is now available to view on BBC iPlayer, along with the four remaining regional heats, with the final due to be broadcast on BBC Cymru Wales on Thursday, July 16.
For more property, renovation, and interior design stories join our Amazing Welsh Homes Facebook group here.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login