Shortly after buying her house – a compact former worker’s cottage in a photogenic Dorset market town – Elizabeth Rose asked an architect to quote for renovating the property. His advice was stark: ‘If I were you, I’d sell and move on. Even if you make a loss.’
He did have a point. The house – bought at an online auction during which bids increased in ‘terrifying increments of £500’ – had been derelict for two years. Floorboards sagged, the garden was an impenetrable thicket of brambles,