Barnorama All Fun In The Barn
Recently, Jamie Barrow, known as Britain’s fastest snowboarder, showcased his latest home renovation project
While so many people know him as Britain’s fastest snowboarder who won a Guinness World Record for the fastest speed on a snowboard while being towed by a vehicle, Barrow is also brilliant at home renovation. The 28-year-old man has already renovated 6 properties, although his latest one was the biggest project so far.
In 2017, he noticed that a beautiful historic Georgian townhouse, where he already owned a property at the time, had a basement and sub-basement available to buy.
After purchasing the ramshackle basement, Barrow spent years renovating it
“This [basement] was actually a communal area, but because of the state it was in we couldn’t use it in any way. I thought ‘If we can’t use as a communal area what is it good for?’ So I approach the people who owned the building to see if they would be up for selling me that area. After long negotiations, they agreed to it.”
Even though the basement was in a rather poor condition and looked like a creepy old dungeon, Barrow immediately realized that he could turn it into something really lush. And so he did!
The man recently shared the result and the unrecognizable “dungeon” quickly went viral
“It was quite scary to go down there at night on your own. It was something like out of a horror film, but I looked passed it and saw the potential of this property,” he said.
Barrow told us, that the area, which was probably untouched for a hundred years, is very special to him because of all the history it has in it. “I feel very proud that I’ve restored it back to the state where it’s going to be enjoyed for another 100 years,” the property developer said.
It took three and a half years with plenty of headaches and an investment of $137,000 until the basement became unrecognizable. The previously uninhabitable place with no water, electricity, and gas was turned into a beautiful 2-bedroom apartment that now sells for around $592,000. “The thing I liked the most about this project was actually seeing the state it was and being able to restore it back to it’s potential,” Barrow said. You can check out the listing here.
The stunning 2-bedroom apartment now sells for $592,000
Jamie has been developing properties for around 7 years now. During winter the man is usually preoccupied with snowboarding, but he needed something he could work on during the summer. That’s how he became interested in property renovation. It all started with a small project. “I found the cheapest one-bedroom flat I could find in Bath and started with that. It went really well and I made a decent amount of money on it, which was a surprise to me because I wasn’t really planning on making much on it as it was just a passion project to me.” One small project after another led Barrow to open his own property renovation company. Hopefully, we will see plenty of stunning renovation from him soon!
After putting so much work into this project, Jamie couldn’t be prouder of the result
