Television presenter Stacey Solomon has shown fans inside her new £2 million Essex mansion, revealing a vast Grecian-style bathroom, a sauna and walk-in wardrobes.
The 36-year-old star and her partner Joe Swash, 44, recently surprised followers by announcing they had sold their previous family residence, Pickle Cottage, to purchase the expansive property.
Solomon is a television presenter and singer who rose to fame on The X Factor before hosting home renovation series Sort Your Life Out and becoming a regular panellist on ITV's Loose Women. Swash is a television presenter and actor best known for his role as Mickey Miller on the BBC soap opera EastEnders, as well as winning reality competitions I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! and Dancing on Ice.
Solomon has been documenting the ongoing renovation and decoration of the mansion on social media, sharing her latest property update with fans on Monday.
Grecian bathroom and sauna features
In her latest video tour, Solomon showcased the home's oversized bathroom, which centers around a giant bathtub positioned in the middle of the room alongside wall murals depicting half-naked characters.
"I love how crazy it is but I don't know whether to keep it as a bathroom..." Solomon told the camera during the tour.
Reflecting on the scale of the project, the presenter admitted feeling overwhelmed by the work ahead. "In this house I am overwhelmed, like I don't know what to do. There is so much to do in this house and I've just got to take it slowly," she added.
Turning the camera around, Solomon showed off an adjoining sauna positioned off the side of the main bathroom space.
The bathroom also connects to a large dressing room packed with fitted storage units. Solomon explained that her three-year-old daughter, Belle, has already expressed a desire to turn the wardrobe area into a "Beauty and the Beast room".
Home office renovation plans
The bathroom update follows plans Solomon shared last week for her new home office space, which features large built-in wardrobes, a marble fireplace and retro light shades.
Sharing a video clip on Instagram, Solomon gave fans a walkthrough of the space. "So welcome to the office. I have never had an office inside of my house in Pickle Cottage. I made the shed my office, so this is so cool," she began.
Addressing the room's existing storage, Solomon added: "They left these giant wardrobes and I'm not mad about it. This plug on the floor situation needs to change, but I really love the wardrobes. I feel like I could upcycle them."
The presenter also expressed curiosity over a structural feature near the hearth. "By the fireplace they've got this weird stone thing in front of it. Like I'd love to open it up, but I wonder why they've done that as well. You just think what's behind the fireplace. It freaks me out a little bit," she said.
Despite planned alterations, Solomon intends to preserve several original architectural features. "All the coving and skirtings I love and I want to keep," she noted.
She praised the vintage fixture choices as well. "I absolutely love the lights. Is that weird? Like I love these old-fashioned industrial lights. Like I almost want to center this room around the lighting that's already here."
Demolition work and orange bath
Solomon explained that renovation efforts began on the upper floor of the mansion because all of the existing water tanks were deemed unsafe and required immediate replacement.
"It meant that we needed to do quite a lot of demolition up the top," she said. "So I thought, right, that's where we'll start on the decorating side."
Trade workers and the family have already stripped out the existing fixtures across the upper level. "So we've pulled everything out, got the baths, the sinks, and all of that stuff out of the bathrooms, and I cleaned up the orange bath set," Solomon said.
Anticipating mixed reactions from her followers regarding the vintage sanitaryware, Solomon defended her choice to keep the unit. "Now I know most of you were like, 'Ew, ew! You can't keep the old orange bath. It's gross.' But there's something about it that I really quite like and I'm going to show you tomorrow, clean it all up, try and bring it back to life," she explained.
She added that avoiding unnecessary waste played a major role in her decision: "I also don't love the idea of just getting rid of something that's perfectly good. I feel like I can make it into something like I could go with a whole orange theme in there."
Family living arrangements
While structural work continues upstairs, Solomon revealed that her three sons, Zachary, 18, Leighton, 14, and Rex, 7, are temporarily sharing a single bedroom on the ground floor.
Describing the temporary layout downstairs, Solomon said: "One of the rooms downstairs has got loads of stuff in it where we haven't unpacked."
She further explained: "All the boys are sleeping in one room because they don't have bedrooms yet. Because we're working on the upstairs, so they're all sleeping in one room downstairs."
However, the temporary arrangement has proved popular with the children. "I actually think the boys are quite enjoying all being together in one room. I hear them like laughing and like chatting all night," Solomon shared.
The family is also adjusting to living without televisions after leaving their sets behind during the move. "Oh and we've got no tellys. Keep forgetting to say we left all our tellys at Pickle Cottage," Solomon noted.
Explaining why the devices were left, she added: "We didn't have loads of tellys, but what ones we had fitted in all the little alcoves in the walls and stuff. So they asked if we'd leave them because they fit."
"So we left them, and that's been weird. Not sitting and watching. Do you know what I mean? That's been really weird," she admitted.
Property purchase and ownership
Reports have revealed that Solomon purchased the new £2 million property independently without financial contribution from Swash, following the same structure as their previous home purchase.
Solomon originally bought Pickle Cottage for £1.3 million in 2021, describing it at the time as the family's "forever home" before deciding to move five years later. The property subsequently sold for over £1 million.
Although Solomon and Swash held a wedding ceremony in the garden of Pickle Cottage in 2022, the couple have not formally registered their marriage and are not legally husband and wife.
An insider source told The Sun: "Stacey's a canny businesswoman and was also the sole owner of Pickle Cottage, which sold for over £1million, so it made sense she'd buy the new home on her own."
The source added: "She even got some money knocked off the official asking price. She paid over £2million for the new Essex mansion, but she's worth over £10million so that's not even a dent in her bank balance."
By comparison, Swash has an estimated net worth of £1.5 million. Representatives for Solomon were contacted by the Daily Mail for comment on the purchase.
