AFTER moving into a smokers-yellow council house Celene Francis was determined to make it feel like home.

But the mum from South Yorkshire who works as a mental health support worker while studying midwifery, knew she’d have to be savvy with money if she planned to turn it into her dream home.

The proud council house owner, 25, has made it on TikTok showing off her monochromatic style home, but it certainly didn’t look that way when she first moved in with her daughter three years ago. 

Celene tells Fabulous: “It was awful, I think the person who lived in there before was a heavy smoker, everything was yellow, doors painted purple, it was just your typical rundown property, the garden was overgrown, couldn't even see it.”

Now Celene has spilled the beans on her top DIY jobs and the bargain shops she relied on to transform her entire home for just £3,000 which also included new flooring and doors.

The mum-of-one, who lives in a three-bed property loves nothing more than making her way down to B&M to find the latest home decor supplies, so much so that she goes in at least once a week to ensure she doesn’t miss out on any new drops.

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While we’d all love to shop in the likes of H&M or Zara Home, the prices can be staggeringly high, so Celene makes sure she goes to B&M often to check out their latest dupes.

She says: “It (H&M Home) is my style but the price is triple the amount, but you can get literally the same thing from B&M for half the price. I found £6 mini ceramic vases – exact same £12 in H&M.”

“I go in once a week to see what's new, it's like Primark for home, you go one day they have it, the next it's gone, things sell out really quickly in B&M,” she reveals.

For storage, the mum recommends a trip to Home Bargains and Ikea is her go-to for cheap furniture.

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Celene also recommends Facebook Marketplace for secondhand pieces, “you can upcycle things, sand them down, paint them, add new handles.”

The savvy shopper decided to paint her entire house white so that the house was a clean slate for decorating, the mum often moves decor around the home to give rooms a refresh without spending any money at all.

“If you go for different colours in every room you are limiting what's going to go with it,” she explains.

“I’ll move an ornament from the living room to my dining room and it just fits perfectly, you can use things again and again in different places.” 

Celene’s three favourite DIY jobs that have instantly made her council home look more chic were panelling the front room, vinyling her kitchen and painting the radiators black.

The front room panelling cost her £30 in total where she used wood from a local timber DIy store that they cut down for free, no more nail glue, and paint.

“It was super cheap but looks so expensive,” she reveals.

But she says most people get excited about her modern black radiators which she did herself.

“Everyone is like OMG, people always ask where it’s from and I just painted it with heat-resistant paint,” she says.

Her kitchen makeover cost just £120 to revamp, she added vinyl to the kitchen countertops, painted the walls blue and tiles before and adding B&M shelves and bought her cooker from Facebook Marketplace.

“People always ask when I got a new kitchen, I’m like, I didn’t get a new kitchen, I upcycled it,” and it only took Celine a couple of days.

Despite people praising Celene for her council house glow up on her TikTok account @61thecouncilhouse some people seem to have nothing nice to say.

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“It’s just trolling really, they’ll say silly things like when I did a slat wall someone was like ‘Well done you, you’ve put some wood on a wall,’ just sarcastic comments,” Celene reveals.

But it’s not something that gets the mum down as she continues to add the finishing touches to turn her council house into a dream home.

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