DIY SOS Tonia says makeover by Nick Knowles and his team has made lockdown bearable
A young woman whose home was transformed by Nick Knowles' DIY SOS says it has changed her life and made the lockdown bearable. In 2017 Nick Knowles and a small army of volunteer tradesmen and women transformed Tonia Cheney’s home so she could come home from hospital to Tewkesbury after three years of being bed bound. Since then life has been a rollercoaster and Tonia recently had a tracheostomy which means she is even more vulnerable than when the TV crews and small army of volunteers transformed the family's property.
But she says she and her mother Victoria would have been lost without the complete medical makeover which allowed her to live safely at home.
“Since my house was rebuilt by DIY SOS it has changed my life, and given me the space and equipment to become so much more independent,” said the 22-year-old from Eckington near Tewkesbury.
“I’m extremely lucky. Many disabled people don’t have this. It has helped me a lot through lockdown because I don’t have to just be stuck in one place like I would have been before in my old house.