I live in a council house but you’d never be able to tell from the inside – people say it looks more like a show home
WE'RE a house-proud nation who spends more on home improvements than anything else.
But with the cost of living crisis pinching Britons’ purses, we're having to find cheaper and thriftier ways to do up our pads.
That includes council tenant Celene Francis, who has been in her “bad-to-boujie” home for nearly four years.
The 25-year-old has completely transformed it on a budget of £3,000, relying on high-street homeware bargains from B&M, Ikea and Home Bargains to bring her interior dreams to life.
But she says when she moved in, the house was in “dire condition” with yellow walls and plaster peeling off every surface.
She shares the process of her home transformation on social media, sharing that “nobody can tell she lives in a council house”.
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“When we moved in the house was in a terrible state,” the mum-of-one, from Sheffield, said.
“It was just full of wallpaper - the doors were purple, and the flooring was terrible.”
In an interview with The Star, Celene revealed that “the person who previously lived here was a smoker, so all the ceiling and woodwork was yellow”.
She has made it her mission over the last four years to totally overhaul the house, including a full bathroom renovation last year.
The DIY whizz scraped off the council-issued white tiles and replaced them with beautiful slabs of marble.
She ditched the cheap bath in favour of a glass shower, and replaced all of the silver accents with black, including the radiator and taps.
Another of her designs was a floating shelf corner that looks straight out of Architectural Digest using £15 shelves from B&M.
She adorned them with chopping boards, glass jars, plants, kitchen utensils and dainty glassware.
Celene is proof that you can transform your home on a shoestring budget.
She estimates that her DIY renovations have saved her an eye-watering £10,000.
On her TikTok account @61thecouncilhouse, she has built up a loyal following that’s nearly 120k people strong.
Fans have dubbed her abode a "show home", with many not realising you could perform such glamorous renovations when living in social housing.
More than one million people are waiting for social homes in the UK, but each council has its own local rules about who qualifies to go on the housing register in its area.
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A council house is given to prospective tenants through a points system, so depending on your housing needs, you may be considered low priority.
The council will contact you about any available property once you are high enough on the waiting list.
