Known as The Home Genie, Georgina Burnett is able to work her magic on the trickiest of property and DIY projects – but making a home out of a derelict garage that doubled as an unofficial loo has been her biggest challenge to date.

She owns the building in Sevenoaks, Kent, as part of a seven-bedroom property nearby but it was disused.

‘Because it was near a station, people often used it as a toilet,’ says Georgina, who’s just reached a million views on her YouTube channel, TheHomeGenie.

‘Sadly, the garage was too rotten to save but I decided
I could probably make something of it – so I built what is essentially a two-bedroom property’

She now uses it as a workplace as well as guest accommodation. There’s an air-source heat pump, the flooring is made from recycled and recyclable materials, and almost all of the furniture is upcycled or preloved, saving Georgina thousands.

Her passion for rescuing items that would otherwise be thrown away began by accident when she was at university.

‘I knocked a mirror off the wall in my room, but I got loads of my friends in halls upcycling the broken bits of mirror into new mirrors, with jewels and other bits on them,’ she says.

Such ingenuity is her trademark. ‘I rescue and repurpose whenever I can. I’ve jumped into skips to save Victorian picture rails so they can be reused.

‘That’s really important, not only because of the history of a house, but because it just feels wrong to throw away something that works.’

Every project has boosted her skill set. ‘I’ve often worked alongside professional tradespeople and I’ve learned so much from them. A good tradey is really masterful, and you can see the difference in both finish and efficiency.

‘Family members have also given me help and advice over the years. My stepdad, Alan, in particular, taught me how to saw because he couldn’t bear to see me making such a mess of a piece of wood.’

Georgina loves DIY but admits even she can get frustrated – as happened with what turned out to be one of her biggest successes.

‘I’d always wanted a chaise longue and found a really beautifully shaped one with faded and stained fabric. So
I found the ideal colour teal fabric I was after and rescued the chaise.

‘I stupidly started doing it in the evening, so was up quite late and the air was blue – but I love that chaise longue. When I see the kids playing on it, I know that night was worth it.’

Georgina walks us through her design and creation of each space and reveals the satisfaction of repurposing items that would otherwise have been sent to landfill.

Top bedroom

I love this room. The colours are so calming and the skylight makes it magical when the sun is out.

The headboard was from a charity furniture shop – I rescued a really horrible, dated pleather one, covering it in turquoise fabric, simply stapled into the back.

It took minutes and will have saved me hundreds of pounds and the time looking for one. The side tables were also from a charity shop and I ended up painting them gold with accents of turquoise.

I couldn’t find the right colour of lamp shades, so I simply painted white ones. The artwork is mine.

It was a way of using up leftover paint so that it all tied in together. The two pharmacy jars belonged to my grandparents.

Bottom bedroom

This room was a bit of an experiment with colours, and while plum and lime definitely won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, I really like it.

When you’re going for a scheme like that, though, it’s very hard to find furniture in the appropriate colours. By the time you’ve searched for them, you could have upcycled another item anyway.

The side tables in here are from a charity shop and were two from a nest of replica antique tables. I painted them lime and grey, and the great thing about these is, because they have glass tops, the paint is fully protected from staining.

Again, the artwork in this room is mine. I’m a messy creative as well – to my

detriment. When I was working on the canvases, I had paint pots everywhere, including in the doorway to the living room where I was doing them.

I ended up stubbing my toe, dislocating it and having to go to A&E, which was so inconvenient considering I hadn’t finished the artwork at the time.

Hallway

The hallway has an upcycled, preloved mirror and side unit.

I’m also particularly pleased with the tile effect on the stairs. These are actually just stick-on ones.

I thought it would look great for photos but they’ve stayed strong and they make what would otherwise have been a fairly boring staircase into a feature.

Kitchen

I have to hold my hands up and say the kitchen was fitted by a carpenter. It was lockdown and I was busy home-schooling my daughter and broadcasting live for ITV’s This Morning from my kitchen, so I needed to get someone in for that.

It was challenging, though, because I obviously couldn’t go in when he was there, so I had to manage his questions via FaceTime.

I was broadcasting for an Irish TV programme, and because we could only really use our phones for this, the live broadcast was interrupted by his call asking me what height I wanted the wall units at!

I love how the mirrored tiles bring alive what would otherwise be a fairly neutral kitchen.

En suite shower rooms

I got professionals to fit and tile the two en suite shower rooms. I can tile small areas but these had floor-to-ceiling tiles and one’s a wet room, so you don’t want to chance it!

The blue one accompanies the adjacent room, and I was going for an ocean feel. I painted the sink unit and then used two upcycled spice racks as shelves. The mirror is also second-hand.

I hold the mirror in the wet room close to my heart as it was my great-grandmother’s. I really hope she wouldn’t have minded that I painted it to match.

My mum remembers looking in that mirror as a little girl and it couldn’t have been a more perfect shape and size for the spot, so I think it was meant to be.

Living room

This is filled with either preloved or former display furniture. There are two little round side tables that were left on the street. They just needed a bit of fixing and then I painted them and did a marble effect on the top. These are my pride and joy as they are so pretty, really handy and would have ended up in landfill if I hadn’t saved them.

The table and benches were made from leftover joists from the build. I designed them but must admit I got a carpenter to make them. The wood is so chunky you really need the appropriate tools. It fits in perfectly in its spot and I love that it’s one of a kind.

Above it is my homemade chandelier – an old bike wheel painted gold, with fairy lights and air plants. There are also my pallet wall planters. What’s great about air plants is that you don’t need soil, so these are just stuck on with a glue gun and require a spritz of water every so often.

I wanted a TV stand that you didn’t notice, so again I found a corner unit from a charity shop and painted it white. This is the great thing about upcycling – if you can’t find what you need, you can just make something into what you need for next to nothing.

Source:
courtesy of METRO

by Oliver Stallwood

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