Woman saves £50,000 using thrifty DIY hacks and digging with just a shovel to transform her ‘muddy’ garden into a paved oasis

A woman has saved £50,000 by relying on thrifty DIY skills to transform her ‘muddy’ garden into an oasis for her family.

Charlotte Syeda-Aguirre, 36, was quoted a whopping £60,000 by landscapers – so decided to rely on her own skills for the renovation.

In the end, she spent just £10,509 to create a stunning paved outdoor space fitted with an accent wall, lights and a seating area; digging by hand and carrying bags back and forth between skips.

When Charlotte and her family moved into their Lambeth, Greater London, home in May 2024, she said the garden was their ‘biggest compromise’.

The broken patio, a patch of muddy grass which she said was ‘full of cat poo’, and three dangerous steps made it unusable for their two young children Ruben, six, and Marla, five.

In February of last year, she and her husband Tomal, 37, got to work on a courtyard-style nook outside the two-bed terraced house.

With no room for a skip or equipment, the couple did everything by hand, digging up the garden and shovelling mud by hand and transporting in bags to wait-and-load skips – paying landscapers £6,400 to help with retaining walls and paving.

Four months later, they finished the renovation in July 2025, and have enjoyed basking in their little sanctuary this summer.

Charlotte, who works in digital marketing, said that if they were splashing out £60,000, they may as well be ‘doing an extension, not a garden’.

‘It just was not possible,’ she continued. ‘Anyone can dig, it just takes a long time.

‘The kids were out there digging with us, and we just dug and dug and dug for months and months.

‘I wouldn’t do it again.’

Charlotte added that ‘everything felt dirty and messy, constantly carrying bags through the house’.

 

‘It was really hard on our backs,’ she admitted.

However, after all the hard work, it’s rewarding to enjoy the space. 

‘Before it felt really unloved and not usable, and now hosting garden parties is my favourite thing,’ the mother shared.

‘It’s made such a difference to the way we live.’

The couple first started by digging up the garden to level it for the patio before moving onto the walls and fencing.

They saved hundreds on decor and equipment thanks to support from loved ones, being gifted new plants from family and receiving paint from Wood Finish Direct.

In the end, they only spent £45 making a four metre planter – which Charlotte said was ‘a trust the process DIY and luckily it paid off’.

‘I knew roughly how to make a box and just adjusted the measurements and style to fit,’ she added.

The parents were also determined to finish everything in time for their daughter Marla’s fourth birthday. 

‘My husband would be out there in the dark with a head torch on, just shovelling mud,’ Charlotte said.

‘We were just so determined to get it done and we finished it three days before her birthday and we then had a nice garden party.

‘We got some professionals in to build the retaining walls because we needed them to be safe.

‘If you feel completely out of your depth, it’s a good time to get someone in.

’90 per cent of the time, we’ve been able to do it ourselves.’

The joy the garden has brought the family is endless, Charlotte says: ‘The striped planter with the discoball makes me very happy when I look out into the garden.

‘The discoball was from facebook marketplace, which was such a great find. Our garden furniture is from Cult Furniture and our solar lights are from Amazon.

‘[Our friends and family] can’t believe we did the bulk ourselves and how much of a difference it has made not having the garden in two levels.

‘It feels so lovely when you hear nice things about something you have worked so hard on.’