Couple buy French hamlet for £26,000 and say DIY restoration has saved over £100,000

Unable to afford a house in Britain, Yip Ward and Paul Mappley bought a hamlet in Normandy for £26,000. They have since spent about £100,000 restoring it and estimate that doing most of the work themselves has saved them more than £100,000.

The couple, both 52, were living in a caravan in Tunbridge Wells when friends offered them a property in France. The friends had decided against taking it on because of the extensive restoration required.

Yip and Paul visited and immediately agreed to buy the cottage for £12,000, funding the purchase by selling belongings, including Paul’s old tractor. Subsequent purchases of neighbouring buildings cost another £14,000, bringing their holding to seven cottages, two barns, a workshop, a cider press, two traditional bread ovens and various outbuildings.

The hamlet, La Buslière, had been abandoned for 30 years. The couple began restoring it building by building in 2020.

“We definitely see it as the planets aligned,” said Yip. “We say to ourselves we can’t believe this whole place is ours.”

They had eight months before the full purchase price had to be paid under the French arrangements, allowing them to earn money through their landscape gardening work during the Covid pandemic to complete the purchase.

Since then, income from YouTube, fundraising by their social media followers and donations of materials have helped finance the restoration. They have documented the work online and appeared on Channel 4’s Help! We Bought A French Village!

The original cottage is now complete and available as a holiday rental. A horsebox they brought from Britain is also, they say, “booked out”. They aim to finish the second cottage by summer 2027.

Much of the remaining work involves recovering buildings overtaken by vegetation. Paul said that, apart from cottages one and two, three other cottages had roofs covered in ivy.

“They were literally being swallowed by nature,” he said.

The couple have carried out most of the restoration with help from their friend Ian, 62, who has 47 years’ experience in building restoration. He first repaired the roof of cottage one and carried out minor works in 2019. They did not see him again for four years, although he had been following their YouTube channel without their knowledge.

He returned after watching a video in which they explained that they needed to remove a two-tonne roof beam that was rotten at one end, but lacked the help, machinery and money to do it.

“For the first six months he worked for no payment,” Paul said. They can now pay Ian £1,000 a week from their YouTube earnings.

Paul said around five people arrive each day with donations, ranging from furniture to roofing materials. He puts the value of donated materials at £400 a week.

Their estimate of the savings rests partly on the difference between quoted prices and their own costs. Paul said they were quoted £13,000 to repair one side of the roof of cottage three, but completed it themselves for £2,000: a saving of £11,000.

He extrapolates that saving to £22,000 for a whole cottage roof and, across seven cottages, more than £100,000. That is the couple’s estimate rather than a completed accounting of every building’s restoration costs.

Despite the potential rental income, they do not intend to fill all seven cottages with paying guests. They plan to try living in each cottage once the work is finished, while retaining the hamlet’s quiet character.

“Every single guest who stays here says they can’t believe how quiet it is,” Yip said. He described the absence of light pollution as part of its appeal and said they did not want all seven cottages populated with people.

Their plans include workshop spaces in the other buildings, summer fairs and markets, and a monthly outdoor cinema with pizza-making using the two original ovens. They also intend to keep televisions and uPVC windows out of the cottages.

“Coming from where we come from I don’t think the gratitude for being here will ever run out,” Yip said.