DIY makeover for life-long best pal
nrhn 070313 The team outside Bridget Bonsall's home moments before she arrived.
A woman in Eastwood pulled out all the stops to arrange a DIY makeover for a life-long friend.
Denise Dady spent weeks organising a much-needed top-to-bottom renovation of her pal’s house as a 50th birthday gift worth thousands - in the style of the BBC TV house make0ver show DIY SOS, hosted by Nick Knowles.
The group of family and friends, had spare keys cut and waited until birthday girl Bridget Bonsall took a week’s holiday to Gran Canaria before redecorating her master bedroom and lounge, installing a fire place, a new kitchen and landscaping the garden.
Bridget, who used to live in Eastwood but now lives in Heanor, said she was speechless when she returned home with daughter Annie, 18, who lives with her.
She said: “As I came round the corner all my family and friends involved were outside my house - it was just like 60- Minute Makeover on the telly - I was so emotional I couldn’t get out the car.”
Denise, of Nottingham Road, began masterminding the scheme back in December.
To put the plan into action - labelled ‘Project B’ to keep it a secret - she enlisted the help of friends Louise Buck and Susie Allsop and began calling on favours from plasterers, painters and electricians she knew.
Louise even enlisted her husband’s firm Grass Track to fell a 30ft tree there.
Garden centre worker Denise, who met Bridget at Eastwood Comprehensive School before they were teens, said she did it “because I love her and because she would never have gotten round to it herself - we just wanted to surprise her for her 50th!”
Mum-of-two Bridget had been trying to sell the home, which she has lived in for 22 years, and called it the ‘Shameless house’ after the Channel 4 series set on a run down housing estate.
“Now I don’t want to sell,” she said.
“I can’t find words to describe them. The time and effort they put in was amazing”, she added.
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Weather for Eastwood
Thursday 23 May 2013
Today
Light showers
Temperature: 3 C to 8 C
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