The Most Lavish Royal Family Home Renovations We Can't Look Away From

The royal family has an impressive number of homes, many with enormous amounts of square footage that need upkeep. Buckingham Palace boasts a massive 830,000 square feet of real estate, and although Frogmore Cottage is one of the smaller properties, its 5,089 square feet makes it a sizable house. In addition, these royal residences are historic homes, likely making any maintenance and renovation more complicated and expensive.

Due to age, some royal properties have needed major overhauls just to make them livable. In 2014, William and Catherine, Prince and Princess of Wales, spent a purported $7.2 million on their Kensington Palace apartment. While the couple had some wish-list items, other expenses were likely non-negotiable, such as safely ditching asbestos. On a somewhat smaller scale, in 2024, Royal Lodge, home of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Duke and Duchess of York, was estimated to require about £250,000 (approx. $336,000) to deal with moisture-related concerns. Back in the 1940s, Queen Elizabeth had to revamp Clarence House after it had sustained damage during World War II, while dealing with construction material shortages.

Beyond getting basics like light, heat, water, and a reliable roof, royal properties have also made room for the more upscale things in life within their giant budgets. Sometimes these royal decorators have even demoed perfectly good construction to bring their artistic visions to life. These sumptuous refreshes have also served as a golden opportunity to display all kinds of royal treasures. Let's take a look.

During holidays like Easter and Christmas, William and Catherine, Prince and Princess of Wales, often spend time at Anmer Hall. The Wales' Norfolk mansion has seen its share of lavish upgrades. Part of the budget included increasing curb appeal and privacy by adding extra trees. In keeping with Kate's love of nature, the home even has a sunroom on the end that looks like the conservatory from the board game "Clue." 

Upgraded kitchens also had a place on William and Kate's Kensington Palace project list, and at Anmer Hall, they reportedly went all out with the kitchen, changing it to meet their exact specifications. Unfortunately, the Waleses haven't shared an "after" pic of the kitchen, so we'll just have to dream.

In 2017, Buckingham Palace embarked on an extensive ten-year renovation project reportedly valued at approximately half a billion dollars. Besides being a huge space, the palace hadn't worked on something like this for seventy years, so some of the to-do list had been accumulating for decades. 

To help offset the costs of this expensive, mostly publicly-funded endeavor, people can pay to visit some of the finished areas and see the results firsthand. The lavish décor includes mural-like wallpaper, breathtaking chandeliers, intricately carved furnishings, paintings, and ceramics.  

Two years after Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip got married, royal fans could feast their eyes on an entire book of photos featuring many nooks and crannies of Clarence House, their first home. The couple added some of the latest tech at the time, including upscale appliances. They even hoped to have a home theater, but it's not clear if that project ever came to fruition.   

Parts of the décor were fit for a future queen, like chandeliers dripping with crystal and the imposing Corinthian columns in the drawing room. Others look very evocative of the times, like Elizabeth's sitting room, with a flowered couch and chairs that are the same shade of mint green as the walls. In contrast, some rooms are pretty sparse, like King Charles III's then-nursery, where not a toy was in sight for the photo shoot.

King Charles III was only a preschooler when his parents moved out of Clarence House. However, as an adult, he and Queen Consort Camilla have lived there for decades, giving them an ample opportunity to put their own stamp on the property. The initial renovation/redecoration project reportedly cost $7 million. As a nature enthusiast, Charles has made sure the landscaping is picture perfect, although hopefully the king's demands aren't as unhinged as at Highgrove.

Fans can take a virtual tour and check out the home's lavish decorating style, including plenty of gilt-framed paintings, and shelves of reading material. Just like his parent's vision of the space, Charles packs in plenty of color and patterns. Unlike them, he's been in the home so long that it's full of stuff — a far cry from his childhood nursery.

Unlike Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, the interiors of Royal Lodge, the home of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, Duke and Duchess of York, aren't on display for public or online tours. However, the family has shown occasional glimpses of their décor, like when a 2016 Harper's Bazaar photo shoot revealed intricately patterned rugs and enviable crown molding on the high ceilings. Andrew's original renovation budget was reportedly seven million pounds, and the neutral-hued walls and solid-colored furniture are a lot easier on the eyes than the home's earlier, louder décor. One photo from 1980 shows lime-green walls and competing patterns everywhere: furniture, rug, and a wall tapestry.

Unfortunately, after living there for over 20 years, Andrew's been generating more buzz about the renovations he hasn't done. In November 2024, the Daily Mail published photos of peeling paint, along with a tree trunk lying in front of an entryway, that are definitely impacting Andrew's curb appeal. Unfortunately, concerns about his ability to afford home repairs led some people to wonder if Andrew would be evicted by King Charles III and asked to move to a smaller royal residence. As of 2025, however, Andrew had reportedly set some of these lingering projects into motion.

King Charles III's Sandringham estate covers about 30 square miles, giving him lots of creative opportunities. Similar to his other properties, the king has been exercising his passion for the environment to make the royal residence more eco-friendly. In one section, Charles installed 2,000 solar panels to generate clean energy. He also plans to have a chunk of land revert to wetlands.

The king's also made some artistic renovations to the landscaping, ditching bland grass and adding topiary, along with a fun plant-lined maze. The maze took a ton of time and manpower to construct. Teams of people hauled in hedges, while others graded and precisely sculpted the land. Masons then constructed paths and steps. Like with many construction projects, things looked worse midway through, and it took some time for plants to grow and finishing touches to be added.