A Home with a History: The Man with a Hammer – and a never-ending renovation project

Thanks to social media, renovation has become a spectator sport. No one knows this better than Greg Penn, AKA Man with a Hammer, whose 30-room fixer-upper in Plymouth has garnered over 300,000 followers on Instagram. A self-confessed DIY novice before taking on the project, renovation is nonetheless in the blood. “My parents were serial renovators,” he tells Inigo. “I lived my entire childhood in varying degrees of building sites. They’ve just bought their retirement home – a seven-bedroom Edwardian property, so they’re not showing any signs of stopping.”

Despite having cut his teeth on a relatively modest (by his standards) six-bedroom Victorian home, his parents still tried to talk him out of Admirals House. Built in 1804, it was previously the home of the local naval hospital’s captain, hence the name (though another legend claims it was where Admiral Nelson was brought after Waterloo). “They thought it was a really stupid idea, because I’d never shown any kind of acumen for DIY or interiors,” he shares. “My last property was 3,500 square feet and took two and a half years to finish, and this is 8,200 square feet, so I thought if I just double it and add a bit, that’s how long it will take. But I was wrong!”

Not that he has any regrets. When we speak, he has just become a Times bestselling author, following the publication of his first book, Man with a Hammer: Taking on Britain’s Biggest DIY Project. “It’s completely transformed my life,” he says. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. This is my forever home.”

Greg Penn: “I’ve always loved old houses. I particularly like Georgian houses because of their elegant sense of proportion, symmetry and light. Because this is a naval house, it’s quite unfussy and pared back in its frippery. I love the elliptical entrance hall, it’s very unusual and was a way of the Georgians showing off. It’s this perfectly oval-shaped room with six doors that sit perfectly within the wall. There’s no repetition in the Chinoiserie wallpaper as you go around either in height or width, so that’s really impressive too, but was an absolute nightmare to do.

“I had a very normal job before doing this. I worked for Riverford Organic in marketing and sales for 11 years. I moved down here with them from Darlignton. Some people see the house and think that I must be loaded but that couldn’t be further from the truth. At my last house I worked on it over the weekends and I thought that would be the case with this one too, but then Instagram started taking off and now I’m a full time Instagrammer. It takes me 40 hours a week to manage, create, do my Instagramming and renovate the house on top of that.

“One of the plus sides of having something this big is that as soon as you’ve got started and done a few rooms, it’s easy to escape from the renovation. I’ve been working on it one floor at a time, so you can almost confine the detritus and mess to one floor. I moved in on the day I got the keys and camped out – I sold everything I owned with the last property so I had nothing. I had to buy a sofa from Facebook Marketplace that night for £100 just so that I had something to sit on. The spare bedrooms were the easiest and cheapest to do, so I did those first, and the bathrooms, there wasn’t a working loo when I first got here, so that was obviously essential.

“I also factor in my work in content creation when it comes to deciding which room to do next. For example, if I was just going to be restoring windows for the next year, then my business would flop – I’d unfollow myself. Social media is known for attention spans being short, so it’s amazing really that people are willing to stick with me through the projects that take longer. I feel like I’ve got 300,000 cheerleaders, which helps motivate me. I get about 5,000 messages a week and I respond to every one, that’s really important to me.

“I’m about halfway through now, I’ve got another 15 rooms or so left to renovate. But then there’s also the garden to do, as well as a lot on the outside of the house, including about 60 windows which will need some serious attention in the next decade. Then there are two sets of stairs that run the whole five floors of the property which are in pretty bad shape. If I continue at my own pace, without any outside help, I think it’ll be my life’s work now. Once I’ve finished, I’ll probably have to go back round again and start repairing it all again.

“Because it’s changed hands so frequently, the hardest thing has been the layers upon layers of paint. It seems to be that everyone that’s lived here has repainted everything. So in every room I have to strip off the paint to treat any rot or damage.  In some of the bigger rooms, that can take two months. It’s also really miserable work, I’ve given myself mild lead poisoning along the way. I listen to 6 Music on my headphones to get through it, otherwise I think I’d go mad.

“I’ve stopped looking at the budget because I don’t really have one. I’ve been doing it in an order that I can afford. That’s why I had to wait four years to have a proper kitchen, because I needed to save for it. I was cooking on a camping stove until then. There’s an awful lot here that is incredibly labour intensive, but because it’s my man hours, it’s ‘free’.

“Money is definitely the scary thing with this place. I came into it borrowing every last penny I possibly could because it was over my budget. I’ve had to work my absolute socks off to keep the wheels spinning, but you’re only ever one piece of bad news away from tipping the balance. That’s why I don’t lead a lavish lifestyle. Most of what I earn is going back into the house.

“If I ever finish it, I don’t do well sitting around doing nothing. I like to be busy. I’d love to convert a campervan and travel around Europe, or buy something totally different, like a little cottage somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes I dream of doing up a great big chateau in France. But those I think shall remain dreams – from both a financial and physical perspective, I’ll be knackered by then.”

Further reading

Greg Penn on Instagram

Man with a Hammer: Taking on Britain’s Biggest DIY Project is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£22)