Amy: Welcome to Stories from Site, the podcast for renovation enthusiasts. I’m Amy Dohnalek and together with my co host Jane Middlehurst, we chat with home renovators about the roller coaster that is renovation.

This week we sit down with Vicki, a DIY, renovator, and YouTube educator who takes us through her step-by-step journey of transforming an auction bought property into a dream home.

Whether you’re tackling your first renovation or you’re a season pro looking for fresh inspiration, this episode is packed with practical tips, relatable struggles, and plenty of motivation for your next projects.

Welcome to Stories from Site Vikkie, glad to have you with us.

Vikkie: Thank you for having me.

Amy: We would love to know about your renovation. Do you want to start from the beginning?

Vikkie: Yeah, this is our third renovation So we are living in a property bought at auction in September, 2023.

If you asked me if I would have done this property two, three years ago, I would have just freaked out.because the reason this was in auction, it’s a four acre farm and there is the original 1800s cottage, this is a late 1980s to 1990s build.

Two of the ceilings were gone. There were no water on because The reason there was it, the ceilings were missing, the place had flooded due to burst pipes. So there was a lot of cosmetic work, plasterboards to replace. And it was all overgrown and nobody were interested.

Luckily, because it were an auction, people didn’t want to pay the fees. And that was a very scary process for us anyway.

But I saw excitement. I thought, Oh, I could do this. I’ve done this a lot of this with my dad. So yeah,we’re pretty much camping and we’re, we’re enjoying it.

Amy: Going back to right at the beginning, what did you find so compelling about renovating?

Vikkie: So in 2014, we were renting my parents always said rent was dead money. My dad’s second generation to a timber yard, but he is a skilled cabinetmaker, joiner, and carpenter. Their side hustle has always been renovating flipping houses.

Now I wasn’t interested in any of that, but when I went to university and went out in the real world, needing to live somewhere,

I did rent for a while. And yeah, renting was a bit of a shock I was a bit spoilt, I suppose. But that’s when I felt the need to do something up. So, I didn’t want to pay rent anymore. We were saving up, really scrimping and saving for a deposit. And in 2014, that’s when properties were starting to fly off the shelves, so to speak.

And I panicked and said to my husband, we can’t be renting forever. Properties are, getting more and more expensive. So we managed to save up for a deposit and I looked everywhere in the Midlands my parents kept saying, if you buy a council house, it might not go up in value.

Don’t buy a new house that won’t go up in value. You’re better off trying to find the worst rundown property in a nice area I did. With little to no knowledge how to do anything. I never showed an interest in my parents doing DIY. I just saw them turn around houses and sweat, you know, and, I deludedly thought, well, all it takes is a bit of hard work, no knowledge,I had to learn everything from scratch, filling walls Tiling and it just started off very, very slowly, just baby steps.

And the more I had jobs to do. I turned to YouTube I didn’t want to bother my parents. my dad is 72 this year and still hasn’t retired.

So I didn’t want to be ringing him up. I research something to death. once I’ve got tricky questions then I’ll ask. Asked my dad, I’ve seen people do this on YouTube, or I’ve seen it online.

Is this the, is this proper? And often he would say, that’s actually done wrong. the brace on the door a shed door or gate door or whatever is going the wrong way. And I thought, wow, you’ve got to take what you see online as, as a pinch of salt.

Amy: Yeah.

Vikkie: One of his friends is a building inspector.

Vikkie: And so that was always useful and bricklayers. And because he’s in the trade and sells to people in the trade, he’s always got trades people around him anyway. So he’s been a great source of. Information as well as my father in law, who I used to get a lot of my information right from the start because he used to be, he used to do groundworks for lots of different companies on contract.

So he helped build. Meadow Hall. car parks and things like that.

He was an engineer. So. It was just so useful to have all this information rather than have to go online to look stuff up. I could just ask them And a lot of people don’t have that. So I just started paying it forward, showing my struggles, Sharing what I did online.

Amy: You have a 128, 000 followers. that’s paying it forward and I mean, it’s exploding really, isn’t it?

Vikkie: I must admit I am a bit addicted to Instagram at the moment, but my heart has always been with YouTube. That’s how I started.

The thing I love about the Instagram side of things, is I’m opening these more technical, complex projects to a different audience because they don’t, I tend to find they don’t cross over somebody who’s interested in short form content isn’t necessarily interested in, in the longer form, but I’m not a massive fan.

I must admit of quick short projects that don’t show you how to do something. They don’t, they’re not that helpful. So I always, I must admit, I love saying, If you think it’s too fast, here’s my YouTube version where I talk about every nook and cranny about it. I almost want people to go through that suffering journey that I’ve had to do. Going through the rules and regulations on how to install a lintel for a, for a chimney breast and, you know, to, to open it out

But I’m, I’m a visual learner. So II have to follow people’s YouTube videos. So if YouTube didn’t exist, Oh God, that’d be so gutting. I think there’d be less renovation. There’d be much slower renovations.

Jane: It’s such a great service because I guess more now than ever, the price of doing renovation works is so expensive and material costs are so high. That, it does make sense for people to get going themselves but there is that barrier to beginning because it feels so nerve wracking, I guess, to actually get started.

So way back, maybe two or three years prior, I was doing food recipe videos. I’ve got a food blog called tastefully Vikkie. com I used to, Do maybe two recipes a week on my YouTube channel in this renovation home. I used to get slated of, Oh, why didn’t you think about cleaning your kitchen?

Vikkie: It’s not dirty. It’s, it’s somebody’s old paint or something like that. You just couldn’t get it off. And I thought I’m not having this. This unrenovated home stopped me doing what I wanted to do because at the time we’d just moved into the property and it was my release trying to break away from the renovation.

But my husband always says, why do you keep telling people this story? But it did happen. He said, if you put as much energy into renovating our house as you do on your YouTube channel, we’d have a house done by now. And it hurt a little bit and I thought,Maybe if I compromise, I start documenting some of the videos.

I thought maybe I could earn something, but actually it paid me back in so many dividends of, I have loads of people coming back to me to say, you could do it like this, you know, trades people, occasionally I might get somebody slating me, but it didn’t happen as much as I thought

I found my journey from a novice’s perspective actually helped other people and they were more interested in me messing up how I overcome challenges. And I didn’t, for years it took me to realize that that’s what people wanted to watch.

They didn’t want me to edit out the mess ups And with this auction property, where there’s been a lot more challenges. I’ve kept all of that in because. If you cut out all of the struggles, they’re not going to see the true feeling of what it was really like.

If you’ve really suffered trying to do hours or days, months of research, and you just condensing it down into a five minute video, I did this and I did that and done that.

Vikkie: Bye. I think it’s a disservice to yourself they can go along on the journey with you.

Amy: But also I guess it’s a disservice to them because it’s so easy to see those quick reels and think okay That’s easy. and then be halfway through a job and think oh my goodness what have I done? and you’re right you’re taking people on the actual journey, which is like renovating is tricky

You know, you need a lot of patience.

Jane: That’s why YouTube’s so great, isn’t it? Because it’s step by step. you can just follow, follow instructions. it’s amazing.

Vikkie: Yeah.

Amy: How does it work with the renovation? Do you outsource anything? what’s your take on that?

Vikkie: Well, we’re not in a property with gas anymore, but if we had a gas boiler, things that require Legally require people. Absolutely. I’d be getting A plumber and we’ve got an electrician to update the consumer unit because I’m not legally allowed to touch it.

We all need some basics of how to wire a plug or, you know, how the wiring system works, but I’d still get an electrician to do key things like that.

If it came to things like underpinning. I’d be getting people in for things like that or massive projects like installing a massive window, I’ll be doing this in the next few weeks

I’ve asked my dad to supervise cause he, my dad is brilliant because he’s been doing sheds and fencing for over 50 years. He knows how to get something square within minutes and it might take me about two hours to work outwhere to pack something up, but I’ll be doing double glazing with him soon.

I’ve done things like that in the past with him, but Only little windows, I’m turning dated old plastic windows into French doors and I’ll be cutting the brickwork and I’ve cut the brickwork on two projects now on an internal wall that already had a window above it.

And. My fireplace. So those are little projects leading up to this bigger thing, but I still want him there just in case. Cause it obviously some, a trades person will know a lot more that can go wrong. Like when you put a baton as a straight edge to mount to the wall. So you can use it as a guide for your disc cutter.

It’s important that you’re cutting on the right side, you cut on the outside, closer to the good bricks, if you slip, you’ve got to replace some of the bricks. I want to cut on the inside of the batten where the bricks are going to be demolished.

And if I slip, it doesn’t matter because those bricks are going to go anyway. So there’s a lot of little details that you’ve got to look into of what could go wrong.

Jane: It’s experience, isn’t it?

Vikkie: It’s, it’s trying to find the right trades person that’s sharing all the information online and are they going to share all the tips and tricks?

Do they even have the time? Because sometimes it makes me wonder, do they have a good business model? Because surely a good trades person is inundated with customers they don’t have time to be filming stuff like that. My dad wouldn’t be filming his stuff. When I wanted to create a website for him, cause I used to think, come on dad, you’re in the dark ages. You don’t even have a website. I don’t want a website. I’m too busy.

Jane: They just don’t need it. that’s quite often a sign of a good contractor. What I was interested in, Vikkie, you said you bought the house in 2023.

How far through the works are you? What have you managed to do already and what have you got to go?

Vikkie: It’s definitely so easy to forget because it’s still looks, a whole really still looks really, really dated. Everything is done very, very slowly, really, because I’m documenting it all, but the first thing I had to do was get the water up and running because when we moved in there was a reason why there was no ceiling up there.

And we had to play find the leak, if you like, where the plasterboard was missing, I could see some of the pipe lagging was missing. I quickly found out, it’s a bit wobbly here. This has got to be an issue. So I managed to um, face my fears, climb me up into the loft.

I knew I’d be able to fix the pipes, but when you’re in the thick of it, I just completely, I just forgot about it and, and just got it done.

Amy: Do you have a plan before you start? Do you think, okay, we need to do this, this, this?

Or is it more just like, it’s so urgent that it’s like, okay.

Vikkie: Well, the, the early days it was, it was so urgent, but the, I suppose our plan is we’re, constantly talking to each other, what needs to be done next in order. And we’ll talk about, well, if we do it like that. I won’t be able to get that done. I need to take the skirting boards off before I install the flooring, that kind of stuff.

So I suppose in my mind, I’m constantly throwing hypothetical obstacles thinking about risk assessment.

And constantly thinking of in what order we need to do this. And once I’ve got an idea of, Oh, this needs to be done. I’ll research something to death.

If I do have to draw a plan out, I’ll draw a plan. I’ll go on to SketchUp and build the chimney breast brick by brick, for example, then try and dissect it of which brick should I be removing to put the lintel in? And

Amy: Yeah.

Vikkie: I do it in so many different ways, and because it’s a third house, some of my skills are probably

more advanced than when I started out in 2014. So some jobs are just nice and quick, which I don’t have to plan as much. But it’s new territory, things that I definitely have to do, and I will just research something until I’ve removed any possible questions.

I tend to do stuff in the order of what I feel comfortable with. And I think everybody else should be doing that anyway. Start small and build your little skills. It all compounds to bigger things.

Amy: I’m looking at you opening up a chimney breast, putting in a lintel doing cute gravel driveway, you’re doing some really big stuff. Just looking at you doing it makes me think, Oh yeah, okay. It’s step by step, isn’t it? You’ve got to be confident about what you’re doing and then do it one bit at a time and see how you get on.

Jane: it’s amazing. I think it’s brilliant.

Vikkie: It’s all down to researching what method to do the job is the most comfortable for you. When I searched on widening the chimney brass, so. You’ll, you’ll go down the rabbit hole of you’ll need acro props, strong boys and acro props to, to prop it up other sources will say, there’s only a little pyramid of bricks that will collapse.

Unless you did anything major and ripped the whole lot, lot out your chimney and whatever supporting could collapse. Now we’re only in a bungalow. There’s, it was only. A chimney that would narrow further up. There’s nothing resting on that, but still people have got to do the research.

Amy: Mm.

Vikkie: What I would do is get the job planned out and I’d go to my dad and say, this is what I’m going to do. And often I’d say, why are you doing it like that? He said, why are you bothering with Acro props?

it’s not going to collapse. All you need to do is secure a structural piece of timber on the row above to prevent any bricks coming loose then you can work on the lintel underneath and once it’s in, you’ve packed it up and put some mortar in, it’s all gone off, then you can remove that piece of timber.

So many people online said that is genius. Now I can’t take credit for that. That was my dad’s idea. And he said, we used to do that all the time.

There’s so many different ways of doing stuff, but if, yeah, if I was working in somebody, if I was a contractor working in people’s home, I probably would.

Use acro props. You don’t know how good the brickwork is, particularly on a really old building. I would probably do that for liability reasons. Then you’d have to pass on the cost to the customer.

Amy: But anyway,it does get funny when they’re arguing with each other.Really?

Vikkie: All the contractors. Chipping in, I’d find that really hard.

I guess I wanted to ask How you manage,the negativity and being a woman in the building world. do you think that plays into it? Or do you think it’s just people who like to be grumpyI think you’re always going to get sexism online. Even in 100, 200 years, it will just be there. I don’t think you can fully get rid of that, but I’m so used to doing DIY. I’m so used to being a female in a male dominated environment, I find it makes me laugh even more now.

Now I’ve branched out to, well, being addicted on Instagram. I’m sharing content on there. It’s so strange and so funny to hear people just use, it’s always the same throwaway comments, get it back in the kitchen or, Oh, I think, and one set. I did a plastering, I did a dot and dab video of my archway on YouTube for hours I was watching plastering videos of how to finish it off and I was really impressed how it turned out.

It was better than some of the plasterers I’d had in the past. But there was one person who I blocked in the end because he started insulting my dad. he said, that’s the worst job ever.

Nobody follow any of these, tips. And he said, Oh, I might just start opening my own hair salon. And I thought, what’s a hair salon got to do with plastering? And I knew what you were, what he were trying to do. But I thought, I’ll leave it there. I’ll, I’ll ignore him. I thought it was hilarious. Cause. I felt so great about the work.

Nothing could possibly get me down. I knew I’d researched it to death by pros. And it’s these things that they’ve never met you before. They just see a woman.

Amy: Yeah.

Vikkie: So I just find it amusing that I think they’re just so used to seeing women, they might’ve seen a lot of women, you know, try to glue a shelf to a wall. I have seen these kinds of videos like, Oh no, don’t, Somebody said to me the other week on Facebook, The daughters or sons of a trades person tend to be a different breed.

And you know what? I almost agree that if they’ve grown up with a trades person with a critical eye, who’s judgmental of that’s being done wrong, you know, that there’s. Critical people out there. And so my standard of work is usually, would my dad be proud of this

With that critical eye, I think that’s probably foreground training, right from the start, I knew what people could have said.

And maybe that’s helped that I’ve pushed myself a bit further.

Amy: But do you think it’s a motivation for you?

Vikkie:

I absolutely want, I’ve always wanted to try and inspire more women. I’ve tried with my YouTube channel as well, just to encourage everybody. But When I look at the data, the demographics YouTube, it’s 80 percent male. It’s, it’s, it’s just always been like that, but I have the bigger I grow.

I have noticed more and more women are vocalin the comments, which is great. So maybe there is more women doing it in general, or it’s just because I’m noticing them more because my channel has got a bit bigger on Instagram. There’s a lot more women on there and I do get a lot of women contacting me with questions.

So I do think it is probably the right place for me to try and appeal to more people. Not just, not just men.

Jane:

That’s so interesting, isn’t it? Just that people get their information in a different way and actually Instagram. you’re looking at nice pictures of homes and following beautiful accounts and then get to the point where you want to know more but that’s a totally different audience YouTube’s beginning is, yeah, you’re going there because you already know you want to do something you’re going to find out how to do it.

Jane: it’s a different

starting point, isn’t it?

Vikkie: Yeah, I just love that I don’t just share those short little things that aren’t necessarily useful. because

we all start our journey in different ways. We all learn differently. So it’s just nice that I’ve got some, like, it’s like a reference book there.

Amy: Yeah, it’s like a library.

There was one question I wanted to ask. Just in terms of renovating, what’s your approach to budgeting? And is that another motivation for the DIY approach?

Vikkie: It was absolutely right from the start, but as I’ve gone on, my husband has been moaning, you spent 900 on tiles for this chimney breast, that kind of thing, I suppose it’s less important to me at the moment because this is our third house. When we sold the first house and moved back to Doncaster, we were able to, earn a bit from inflation on the property there.

And then exactly the same when we sold that. So in some areas, I do feel like I’ve got to do some stuff on a budget. Like because it’s a renovation home. I’m not going to spend on carpets. Some people would say, Oh, I’ll get temporary carpets for now.

They’re just going to get ruined. But I know it’s paint is going to go all over him. So I don’t spend on stuff that I know is going to get trashed when it comes to the end product, where I want it to look good, I will spend on it. For example, the tiling, the chimney breast, I want to do a job once, not twice.

And I want,I want it to be right, but I know that I’m saving money we’d already had quotes to do the chimney breast, change the layout, put the fire in. I know I’d saved maybe about 3000 pounds by not getting that person in.

Amy: That must be your equation every time like I know I can save money if I do it myself versus getting someone else in then that’s a bit more in your bucket to spend on the finishes like you say,

yes, yeah,

Vikkie: if it’s more costly for me to do something than get someone out to do it, then absolutely get someone out to do it. But occasionally there’ll be something where I want to do it because I want to learn.

Jane: Is this full time for you now? How much is the time commitment for doing the stuff that you do?

Vikkie: Well, yes, but the, the annoying thing is, most of the time spent editing is trying to translate that footage into something that is understandable for people, but yeah,it’s a very small percentage of actually doing the DIY really. And you sat down, oh, it is painful, sat down doing, doing the edit sometimes.

I was talking with my friends about it, It might take me up to two days to edit a video. And some of them said two days, cause I went to them for advice of how, can you get a quicker workflow? And they said, two days? It takes me two weeks sometimes. What?

This, This, just no, no way I wouldn’t get anything done.

Jane: That’s

so interesting, but you know, you’ve obviously got two talents, doing the work in the first place. And then, as you say, making it understandable and thinking about how to document that in a way that other people are going to find useful. And that’s another amazing skill to have.

Vikkie: But you get such a buzz that adrenaline rush of doing something and seeing it work out. And when it goes wrong, it’s horrible, but I’ve not had anything like that for ages.

Thank goodness.

Jane: Do people send you their stuff that they’ve done? Are they like, Hey, look at, I tiled my bathroom. Do they send you stuff back?

Vikkie: I get a lot of um, picture messagesand it used to be the same type of project. I did a raised patio step to get into my conservatory. A lot of people used to send me that or a patio that they’d done,

just things. Oh, you’ve encouraged me to rip off this plasterboard and start from scratch. I got a comment yesterday, actually, that said, every time I renovate my house, I always think of you.

And I thought, Oh, that’s quite nice. I did think is that creepy a little bit, but I thought. Well, I said, well, I hope I’m encouraging you in your thoughts.

Jane: I bet it’s just like what would Vikkie do? You have the person in your head where you’re like, what would, you know, X person do in this situation? I bet you’re that person for loads of people.

Vikkie: I do keep the, I do keep the censored swearing in sometimes. I do keep those moments in, but I do have to remove, I mean, sometimes, you know, I’m really getting angry with something. I’ve just got to, Remove that entirely and say, yeah, I struggle with this a lot. You know, it’s got to be family friendly

Jane: I love it.

Vikkie: you’ll hear some beeps sometimes if I’ve cut something wrong because you’ve got to keep those moments Not everything goes hunky dory.

Jane: It would be so frustrating to watch somebody’s YouTube channel where it looks like they’ve done everything right first time. And then when you give it a go, it doesn’t work out like that.

That would be very disappointing, wouldn’t it?

Vikkie: And it’s those momentsme telling them, don’t do what I did here, those are the most enjoyable bits where, you know, where TV goes wrong.

And sometimes I will say to my husband, just turn the camera off He’s the cameraman sometimes. And I’ll say, turn it off, turn it off. And he’s kept it on. And

actually, I’ve been able to laugh at myself later on. And it’s those, those are the moments that were really funny.

Jane: You know, they helped people. Oh, I love that.

Amy: thank you so much for being so generous, and sharing so much.