Despite the crazy heat this summer we’ve been busy beavering away upgrading No. 66 Sherwin Road to make it the best student house in Nottingham. OK, we might be biased but you have to set yourself goals and that’s what we’re aiming for, and we like to stretch ourselves every year to see what more we can do.

The kitchen table

Our challenge is to try and make improvements without changing the original structure of the house and ripping the character out of it. We don’t want to concrete over the front garden, we don’t want to make the bedrooms all into en-suites and compromise their size and we don’t want our student tenants to feel like we can’t be bothered to take care of the house because “it’s just a student house”.

What we do want is to make the house as comfortable, clean and inviting as we possibly can whilst also recognising that it has to be functional and secure.

By this we mean everything works the minute you step over the entrance: the Wi-Fi is fast and accessible in every room, the heating works, there’s plenty of hot water, the beds, carpets, bathrooms and furniture are spotlessly clean.

The TV room

There’s a garden to relax in with a great BBQ (starter pack of charcoal supplied) and plenty of outdoor seating to chill with your friends. There are comfy seats in the lounge and a great TV connected to the latest Virgin Media system and to help with the chores there’s a top of the range dishwasher (Bosch), washing machine (Bosch) and tumble dryer (Miele).

This summer we finished the re-carpeting of the house we started last year and every bedroom now has a new top quality bed with an 800 pocket sprung mattress with memory pillow top. We’ve also upgraded the seating in the kitchen and dropped in a new stylish retro kitchen table. The WiFi has been upgraded to Virgin Media Superfast Fibre 1GB broadband (with Pods around the house to ensure great coverage).

Three of the rooms have had a complete makeover with a sprinkle of Farrow and Ball colours throughout, new bedroom furniture, a new comfy corner sofa has been added to the lounge and a new Virgin 360 TV Box has been dropped in, connected and is ready to go!

The front bedroom on the first floor

The new students for 2022/23 have picked up their keys and have moved in and early feedback is really positive. Phew!

Time for us to pause and take a breath before the viewings for next year start and we begin to plan what changes/upgrades we should make next year.