- A couple who won over $1 million in the
lottery used the money to renovate their dream home. - Andrew Cunliffe brought home his winning scratch card in 2016 and proposed to his wife, Natalie.
- They used the prize money to buy and renovate a 1930s house, which had been lived in by squatters.
A couple who won £1 million (nearly $1.4 million) in the lottery and got engaged the same day used their winnings to buy and transform a dilapidated 1930s house into their dream home.
Natalie and Andrew Cunliffe met 10 years ago while working around the Blackpool Tower. Andrew, who works in construction, was on his break in 2016 when he bought a scratch card that would change the couple's life forever.
"I was at a play center with my daughter," Natalie, 43, told Insider. "He just rang me and said I need to get home."
"I just felt sick, I thought he'd lost his job," she added.
Upon arriving home, Andrew showed her the scratch card. At first, Natalie didn't understand what it meant but when it finally clicked, another unexpected thing happened - Andrew proposed.
"We'd been together a good few years but he wanted to wait until we knew we could afford to get married," Natalie said.
Amid all the excitement, there wasn't actually ever a discussion about how they'd spend the money.
"You always have that conversation of if we win the lottery, this is what we would do. When it actually happens it's completely different," Natalie said. "I was in my late 30s so you've got to kind of make that work for you and your family."
They paid off their mortgage, finished renovating the semi-detached house they lived in at the time, and set up trusts for their children, now aged 7 and 3. There was no intention to move until Natalie spotted a run-down 1930s house on the way to her children's school.
"This house looked really nice and you could tell no one lived there, it was all overgrown and you could see that some of the things were boarded up," she said. After noticing the home had a for sale sign, she and Andrew went to the open house with 30 other people.
"I walked in and I was like, 'I can see the potential in this house.' Squatters had been in it, but it wasn't horrendous," she said. "You could hear all the people whispering exactly the same thing and I'm like, 'You're not having it!'"
They put in a sealed bid, which was accepted at the end of 2018. For some, it would seem the couple has extraordinarily good luck, but Natalie would disagree. She said they went on to have the "worst luck" with the house.
The previous owner was caught up in a legal case for owing money on the
"We could have pulled out at any time but I was so in love with it, I couldn't walk away," she said.
Then in early 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit. Andrew took on the majority of the construction by himself. "We didn't really see him for the best part of the year," Natalie said.
In 2021, when the major renovations were finally complete, the family moved in. Now with four bedrooms, their children each have an ensuite and get to enjoy having a playroom.
Major changes included flipping the staircase around because it was on two different levels. But they were keen to keep the key historic features of the property that they initially fell in love with like the stained glass windows and decorative rose ceilings.
The house is now mostly finished, but Natalie said "there'll always be a job for Andrew."
Speaking of Andrew, he's still in the habit of coming home with a scratch card.
"He's very hopeful because it can happen twice," Natalie said.