My Victorian Lancashire home has gone viral because of its ball pit inspired by supermodel Cara Delevigne
A Victorian home on the market for nearly £800,000 has gone viral for its ball pit inspired by supermodel Cara Delevigne’s luxury LA pad.
IT consultant Julie Williams built the pit in an empty space at the bottom of a bricked-off staircase in April 2024. The mum of one, who lives in Southport, Merseyside, bought some MDF from her local timber store and filled the space with 11,300 balls and 75 plastic stars for a cost of around £500.
She said: “I thought about making it into a bathroom – there is water and gas that goes over to that room, but my best friend saw a Cara Delevigne YouTube video and we’d been to an exhibition in London which had a huge ball pit you could go to.
“She said ‘why don’t you do a ball pit?’ I said ‘that’s a great idea’. On the YouTube video Cara says ‘you can’t cry in a ball pit, you can’t be sad in a ball pit’. I went out and bought some balls and measured up to see how many balls I’d need, and ended up getting a piece of MDF I could slot in and cordon off to make my ball pit.
“It’s not high tech – it’s a piece of MDF I’ve painted myself and then I’ve got some bits of wood to slot it into and drilled it in to hold it in place. I bought 500 balls just to get a feel and then realised how many balls I’d need.
“I sourced them on something like Temu from China – the postie had to stand at the bottom of my steps and he rugby ball threw them up to me in my front room. I had all these bags of balls in my front room before I took them upstairs and put them in the ball pit.”
Julie, who lives at home with her son, said the only reason she’s selling is as she wants to down size – with seven bedrooms too much for the small family. The seven-bedroom house, which has a basement and rises two-storeys above ground, has been on the market for £799,995 for just over a year.
Though Julie, who is planning to move back to her native Australia, is in no rush to get moving. She added: “I thought I’d put it on the market and I really thought it would sell quickly. When we bought it, we had to fight for it. It’s just bad timing in the market. But, I have my ball pit to play in.”