How we turned our dated bungalow into a modern eco-friendly haven
telegraph.co.ukTesla Powerwall batteries. These are charged via solar panels on the roof, and when additional power is needed, for example over the winter, they pull from the grid via Octopus Energy, a green energy supplier. ‘Even when we need more power than we produce via solar, we are still on the lowest flat rate in the country, and it’s 100 per cent clean energy,’ says Katie.They sold their London flat, and most of the furniture in it, so that they wouldn’t have to pay to store it while they were staying with Katie’s mother, but very few pieces for their renovated home were bought new. ‘About 80 per cent of what we have in the house is second-hand, antique or upcycled,’ says Katie. ‘It’s amazing what you can find on sites like Facebook Marketplace and eBay.’Byron took an online course by the interior designer Rita Konig, which included a module on the essentials needed to build a room scheme, such as furniture, lamps, mirrors and rugs, so they had a specific shopping list in mind, and set up alerts on second-hand sites for the brands that they liked, buying the pieces gradually while the house was being built. ‘We got all of our sofas for about £1,000, and they’re all from brands like Loaf and sofa.com,’ says Katie. ‘The Oka dining table and 12 chairs would have cost around £6,000 new, but we got them for £500.
Some things we had delivered, but we collected a lot ourselves too – we’d borrow a friend’s van. There’s something quite sweet about picking up a piece of furniture from a family who’s had it for 20 years, and they then pass it to you.’Even the oven is upcycled – a second-hand Rangemaster that they bought from Facebook Marketplace for £600 and had professionally cleaned, serviced and spray-painted.
Read more on telegraph.co.uk
