Heartwarming moment widow, 74, who relocated to derelict four-storey home near her grandsons after losing her husband of 20 years finally completes her £150,000 makeover with the help of Vogue Williams’ Renovation Rescue

A widow who was forced to dip into her pension to continue renovating her derelict home has unveiled its remarkable transformation – along with a small yet heartwarming tribute to her late partner that sealed the £150,000 project. 

Penny, 74, is the latest homeowner to star in the second series of Channel 4’s Renovation Rescue, which assists owners with properties left half-built by unreliable builders. 

Formerly presented by Stacey Solomon, the second installment returns with co-hosts Vogue Williams – who holds degrees in construction design-management and quantity surveying – and former Love Island star and trained plumber Luke Mabbott. 

Originally from New Zealand, Penny moved to the UK aged 26 – though she’d recently settled in Shoreham-by-Sea for a fresh start after losing her partner of 20 years, Martin. 

Holding back tears, she said: ‘He died very suddenly of septicemia overnight. He was climbing trees one minute, and the next minute he was gone. 

‘I woke up one day and said, “Hey, Penny, he’s dead. You’re alive. So get on with it and make the best of the time you have here.”‘ 

By making the move to Shoreham-by-Sea, in West Sussex, the artist said she would be closer to her daughter Gemma and her young grandsons, who reside there. 

Moreover, the artist was immediately captivated by a four-story terraced house with a breathtaking top floor that opened up to a vista of the river and the docked boats. 

She added: ‘What more could a New Zealander want? Boats, water… if there had of been a few sheep there I’d have been done!’ 

But Penny’s new home needed a total overhaul, and so she hired a builder that offered a completion date within seven months of beginning work – but 18 months on, the widower found herself still living on a building site.

Across the property, interior rooms were left unfurnished and cluttered with construction gear, timber, bricks, debris, and exposed cables.

The home’s front exterior was crumbling, its cream paint visibly cracked and chipped, while a barrier of temporary wooden boards replaced the rear fence, leaving the garden insecure. 

With no livable kitchen, bedroom, bathroom – using a bucket at one stage to flush her unusable toilet and forced to eat from meals using a microwave for a year – Penny was forced to turn to independent trade workers to continue the work.

But this meant costs rose from a manageable £100,000 to £140,000, before jumping to £150,000, a £10,000 increase she could not afford to part with. 

At the time, she said: ‘It’s eating into what I’d put aside for my pension. If it goes on for much longer, I just won’t have enough to live on.’ 

To help Penny stress less about the cost of her ‘nightmare build,’ Vogue and Luke headed to Shoreham-by-Sea with a game plan of cost-saving strategies, fresh design concepts, and practical skills to turn the property into her dream home. 

Observing the home for the first time, Vogue commented: ‘This is quite the building site. You’ve spent such a long time doing this build – but we’re here to help.’

The pair soon discovered Penny had been living in a self-designed top-floor ‘penthouse’, decorated with rich orange walls, Scandi-inspired rugs and sofas, plants and reeded oak wall panelling – a design that left Vogue impressed.

Inspired, she said: ‘This is an extension of you. It’s very homely, very warm, I love the colour that you’ve done on the walls…’

Vogue revealed the finished layout would see the fourth floor become Penny’s master bedroom, with two further bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor, which had already been completed. 

The first floor would become an art studio, while the main focus was transforming the ground floor into an open-plan kitchen, living and dining space.

Inspecting the building works, Luke admitted: ‘There is a lot of work to do here.’ He spotted a temporary wooden support holding up the staircase – a quick fix Vogue said immediately ‘had to go’ before the stairs could be made structurally sound.

To cut costs, Vogue suggested Penny buy her own plants and planters for the courtyard, saving £700.

An ‘awkward’ nook beneath the stairs was transformed into ‘deceptively’ simple plywood shoe storage finished in matching reeded oak, while black-framed bi-fold doors flooded the downstairs with light and helped soundproof the room.

Outside, Luke tackled the Mediterranean-inspired courtyard with new tiling, rendered walls and planters – work that would have cost Penny thousands through a landscaper. 

Alongside Penny and her daughter, he built a new rendered wall backed with soil and planting, saving around £700 by doing it themselves. 

Luke also installed bespoke slatted timber gates designed by Vogue in place of the temporary boarding, saving a further £600.

The only unavoidable costs were downstairs plastering and underfloor heating, before Penny, her daughter and two grandsons painted the interior. 

A light beige paint brightened the living space, while the exposed beams were coated in white fireproof paint before being finished with a striking lick of bright yellow. 

Carpenter Craig fitted the bespoke kitchen, while Vogue created curved oak-veneered alcove doors before travelling to Foresso in Birmingham to make a cheaper alternative to stone Terrazzo, which can cost around £30 a tile. 

Using the company’s recycled British timber terrazzo, she cut, sanded and waxed a bespoke breakfast bar, saving Penny another £700. It was mounted on a recycled shop counter Penny bought second-hand for just £20.

As the house came together, Penny found space for treasured artwork, including a painting by her late partner, the world’s first professor of cartooning at Kyoto Seika University. 

The biggest expense, however, was re-rendering the crumbling exterior, which she finished in black with black-framed windows – a striking contrast to the colourful interior.

Four months later, Penny’s dream home was finally complete. 

The once-derelict courtyard became a private oasis with tiled paving, quirky orange furniture and towering plants in yellow planters. 

Inside, the lounge and dining room had an IKEA showroom feel, dominated by natural timber, reeded oak, terrazzo-style flooring and a striking yellow feature wall, while shades of orange, brown, yellow, pink and rust added warmth throughout.

Her late partner’s artwork took pride of place in the lounge, framed in bright yellow. She said: ‘I feel as if I’ve… You know, got past the grieving stage where I ended up crying at the drop of a hat. Now I can look at it and feel pleased that it’s there.’

The painting sat between two floor-to-ceiling cupboards the trio built, one concealing the boiler and the other hiding a pull-down bed. 

The dark green kitchen featured cupboards finished with leftover wood terrazzo offcuts, while the bespoke breakfast bar was paired with rust-red stools. 

Downstairs, a compact but striking bathroom featured white and blue ‘toad sweet’ lozenge tiles, orange walls and a sink built above the toilet.

Overwhelmed by the result, Penny told Luke and Vogue: ‘I was sitting here last night, and I thought, “Oh, I’ve got renovation pride”.’ 

She added: ‘I feel as if I’ve… You know, got past the grieving stage where I ended up crying at the drop of a hat. Now I can look at [Martin’s artwork] and feel pleased that it’s there.’

Discussing the final budget, Penny revealed her original £100,000 renovation fund had risen to around £150,000. 

Narrating the transformation, Vogue said: ‘Despite our savings, Penny spent more than she expected, but it’s totally worth it, as she now has her forever home where she can spend more time with Gemma and her grandsons.

‘I think when you walk into that house you know it’s Penny’s house. It’s super artistic.’