When mum-of-three Mandy Charlton, 46, ended her 15-year marriage, she relished the chance to create a home that felt entirely her own.
The DIY-mad photographer had often felt she wasn’t able to express herself through her living space, and the demands of family life meant she never had the time or confidence to renovate the three-storey townhouse she’d moved into more than a decade ago.
But a trip to Spain sparked inspiration, giving Mandy the boost she needed to embrace maximalism and turn her house into a colourful dream home.
Over the course of a few months, Mandy set about a major DIY overhaul for her Newcastle home, doing all the work herself and spending just £1,500.
She put the finishing touches to her handiwork this week.
Mandy said: ‘I wanted my house to be a haven.
‘I wanted it to be somewhere that I didn’t want to run away from, that I didn’t want to escape from.
‘For so long I didn’t have the confidence to do anything and because I work so much, I didn’t have the time to redecorate.
‘Now I have freedom about what I can do. I don’t have to ask anyone’s permission.
‘When there’s nobody to say no that’s going to look bad, it all comes down to you.
‘If it had looked bad it would have been my fault. It’s the power of personal responsibility.
‘I wanted a place where I could have friends around. I love entertaining, but I wouldn’t let anyone in my home for seven years.
‘Now I have got a place that I can show them that I’m not ashamed about. It’s magical.’
The transformation took a lot of hard work and dedication. Mandy learned how to paint from a friend and taught herself how to put together furniture, only enlisting extra help when it came to installing colourful vinyl wraps on her kitchen cupboard doors.
The inspiration for her interiors came from Instagram and a trip to Barcelona.
‘I started searching words like maximalism and phrases like “my colourful interiors”,’ says Mandy.
‘I wanted to find people like me. I am not Mrs Hinch: I am not grey – it’s not for me.
‘Spain was big influence on my colour scheme with the yellow and the red and the tiles on the stairs.
‘I used to have blue walls in the kitchen and magnolia walls in the hallway because I thought that they were cheaper, but I found that it doesn’t cost much more for colour.’
Mandy kept costs down by hunting around for bargains and doing the work herself, picking up paint from high street stores such as Wilko and furnishings from Homesense.
She managed to buy the pergola for her garden with Amazon vouchers, spent £350 on the vinyl wrap for her kitchen cupboards and fridge doors, got a hallway sofa for £200, and sorted the flooring in the kitchen and hallway for £290.
Her total spend was just £1,500 and she absolutely loves the results.
‘When I posted the kitchen on social media, not all the reactions were positive because those colours are going to create a reaction,’ Mandy said.
‘There are some people who think it’s a migraine in my kitchen, but it’s me.
‘I have only had real freedom in the last years. It’s amazing.
‘I am an all or nothing person. I spent nearly all my income on my house – I come to everything I do with lots of energy.’
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