Artist and specialist decorator Daniel Bland, 31, purchased a five-bedroom Victorian property in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, for £230,000 in 2017 and has since transformed it into a Gothic-inspired home with dark ceilings, copper-leaf walls, and a unique cartoon room.
From Rightmove Search to Gothic Transformation
Bland, who works as a mural painter and gold leaf ceiling specialist, initially searched on Rightmove, widening his location criteria due to limited luck. He had never heard of Wisbech before, but the town's Georgian architecture and history drew him in, despite its lack of a train station.
He moved in 2017, saving a £12,000 deposit over two years while renting a cheap room at a friend's house. His monthly mortgage and bills now total £1,500, with a mortgage interest rate of 4.2% over a 35-year term.
Embracing the Gothic Style
Bland has decorated every room at least twice, developing his style and learning new skills. The property's natural darkness inspired him to lean into Gothic aesthetics, painting woodwork glossy black and using rich, deep colours with gold ornamentation. He says the house has witnessed his growth as a designer and serves as a portfolio for his work.
His distinctive style has earned him the Best Interior Instagram accolade at the 2025 Ufurnish Home Awards. While visitors are usually complimentary, online comments can be less so. Bland says enjoying his own home is "highly offensive to some people," but he is fueled by it, aiming to see "how many boring people I can irritate."
The Cartoon Room and Other Projects
The cartoon room, created during lockdown in 2020, was a "boredom project gone wild." Bland used a 10-litre tub of brilliant white and black acrylic paint, spending three days painting black lines and then filming a stop motion of himself turning black and white.
His favourite room is the music room, which is dark but calming and features no TV, a piano, accordion, and a glass parrot chandelier. One DIY mishap involved discovering no wall between the cartoon room and red room, leading to half the ceiling falling down; he removed it and kept the vaulted ceiling without structural work.
Future Plans and Advice
Bland's favourite furniture piece is a green Chesterfield porter's chair in the green bedroom. He plans to remove a false ceiling in the kitchen and possibly convert the attic, though he doesn't need extra space. Issues with the property include sketchy electrical work from previous owners and typical restoration tasks like replacing the roof, upgrading the boiler, and replacing rotting joists and floors.
His advice to buyers: "Think about what you actually want and what you could live without in a home to make your life happy." He has recently purchased a renovation project in northern Italy, which will be his project for several years. Despite Wisbech's lack of nightlife, he prefers a nice home in a less ideal location.
