We are Stephen and Dawn Warrell, we both work in education and have fantasised for many years about creating a dream home. We are avid watchers of Homes Under the Hammer, Grand Designs, DIY SOS and other similar TV programmes.

In June 2016, during one of her “Rightmove sessions”, Dawn spotted St.John’s Church in Libanus up for sale for £55,000. We went along to the viewing session and quickly realised there was a lot of interest in the property and that the property was going to sell for more than the £55K.

We bit the bullet and put in an opening offer and waited . . .

After various emails back and forward, we were asked to put in a final sealed bid. After a lot of deliberations, on the 3rd July 2016, we sent our final offer of £72,600 and waited . . .

A week later we were delighted to discover our bid was the highest and we proceeded with the purchase. On the 1st September 2016 we completed, and the church was ours – now the real hard work started. The church had no planning permission, if we didn’t get planning permission, we would be stuck with a church rather than the starting place for our dream home . . .