We bought an entire school for £132K & turned it into our dream home -our kids even have a gym playroom with swings
A COUPLE have revealed how they turned a 100-year-old school into an enormous family home.
Stacie Grissom, 36 and husband Sean, 35 purchased the old schoolhouse, located in Indiana, USA back in 2021 for just £135,000.
They spent the next three years getting it move-in ready and now have an enormous four bedroom, and 2.5 bathroom home to raise their two young children in.
Stacie and Sean are both fascinated with history, so were keen to find a unique home to move in to.
They found the school, which opened back in 1914, through an estate agent, and immediately knew it was the one.
“I never thought that this incredible building would be our home,” Stacie told CNBC.
“I sometimes wake up and think, ‘I can’t believe we get to live here.”
Stacie’s parents went to view the home (as the couple were still living in New York at the time) and they decided to purchase it straight away, sight unseen.
The school is a whopping 9,000 square feet, making it far larger than the average UK home size, which is about 1,000 square feet.
Bills for the large property cost around £262 a month, including electricity, water and Wifi.
When Stacie and Sean bought the school, it had been converted into two apartments by the previous owners,
They face many challenges when converting the place into a family home, as the property needed a new roof and flooring.
In order to help finance the huge renovation project, Stacie has made money through creating content about the schoolhouse on social media.
The couple have also done lots of the work themselves, as they love having a project.
When the property was a school, it had four classrooms and two cloakrooms.
They spent £20,000 converting one of the classrooms into a quirky kitchen, with a huge blue kitchen island and exposed brick walls and turned another classroom into a huge living room with a gorgeous burgundy sofa in it.
Four cheap home renovation tricks
YOU don't have to spend loads to give a room a new look. Here are five other home renovation tricks you can try.
Kitchen cupboards
One way to give your kitchen a complete transformation for less is to change the look of the kitchen cupboards. There are loads of different vinyl coverings out there to choose from, and it’s a quick and easy way to update your home.
Handles
Another thing you can try that won’t break the bank is to change up the handles. You can pick up relatively cheap handles in DIY stores, or even in the charity shop. Adding new ones to your kitchen cupboards, or doors in your house, can be extremely effective.
Leftovers
Most of us have old half-used tins of paint in the garage, but they’re often forgotten about. However, there may be enough in the pot to paint a feature wall in another room, and you won’t have to spend a penny.
Freebies
It’s worth checking your local Facebook Marketplace, or Freecycle, to see what other people are getting rid of. As they say, one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. And if someone’s planning to revamp a room, they might want to get rid of a sofa, or a coffee table, which you could use to give a lounge a new look.
The third classroom has been split in two, and made into bedrooms for the couple’s two children, and the fourth classroom is the master bedroom.
The children even have their own huge playroom in the bedroom, with huge swings hanging from the ceiling.
Stacie said that she doesn’t think the home will ever be fully renovated, but admitted that that is the beauty of the place.