A COUPLE have revealed how they turned a 100-year-old school into an enormous family home.
Stacie Grissom, 36 and husband Sean, 35 purchased the old schoolhouse, located in Indiana, USA back in 2021 for just £135,000.
They spent the next three years getting it move-in ready and now have an enormous four bedroom, and 2.5 bathroom home to raise their two young children in.
Stacie and Sean are both fascinated with history, so were keen to find a unique home to move in to.
They found the school, which opened back in 1914, through an estate agent, and immediately knew it was the one.
“I never thought that this incredible building would be our home,” Stacie told CNBC.
“I sometimes wake up and think, ‘I can’t believe we get to live here.”
Stacie’s parents went to view the home (as the couple were still living in New York at the time) and they decided to purchase it straight away, sight unseen.
The school is a whopping 9,000 square feet, making it far larger than the average UK home size, which is about 1,000 square feet.
Bills for the large property cost around £262 a month, including electricity, water and Wifi.
When Stacie and Sean bought the school, it had been converted into two apartments by the previous owners,
They face many challenges when converting the place into a family home, as the property needed a new roof and flooring.
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”I starred on A Place In The Sun and bought my forever home in Spain for £45k” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6370227572112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]In order to help finance the huge renovation project, Stacie has made money through creating content about the schoolhouse on social media.
The couple have also done lots of the work themselves, as they love having a project.
When the property was a school, it had four classrooms and two cloakrooms.
They spent £20,000 converting one of the classrooms into a quirky kitchen, with a huge blue kitchen island and exposed brick walls and turned another classroom into a huge living room with a gorgeous burgundy sofa in it.
The third classroom has been split in two, and made into bedrooms for the couple’s two children, and the fourth classroom is the master bedroom.
The children even have their own huge playroom in the bedroom, with huge swings hanging from the ceiling.
Stacie said that she doesn’t think the home will ever be fully renovated, but admitted that that is the beauty of the place.