Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's Windsor House Renovation Cost a LOT

It's been a big year for Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. They've celebrated their first wedding anniversary, welcomed their first child - a baby boy named Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor - and broken away from the Kensington Palace household with a move to Windsor.

In preparation for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to relocate to Windsor from London, Frogmore Cottage - the residence gifted to them by the Queen - had to be renovated to transform the property from five staff houses in to one large family home. And with the public release of this year's royal accounts, now we know exactly how much the work cost. (Brace yourself, it's not cheap.)

The royal family's financial reports 2018-2019, which are available to view here, reveal the work to Frogmore Cottage cost £2.4m of taxpayer-funded money. The renovation consisted of "the reconfiguration and full refurbishment of five residential units in poor condition to create the official residence for The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and their family", according to the report. All in all, the building works took just shy of six months, with work starting in November 2018 and being completed in the most part by the end of March 2019.

Plus, the money the royals put back into the treasury via the properties that make up the Crown Estate dwarf the Sovereign Grant they're given annually (which was where the funds for Meghan and Harry's renovations costs came from). The BBC reports the royal family as a whole was given £82 million in Sovereign Grant for the year 2018/19, but the Crown Estate provided £343.5 million in profit to the Treasury for the same period. So when you think about it like that, it's kind of swings and roundabouts.

When Prince William and Kate Middleton made Apartment 1a in Kensington Palace their official residence in 2014, more than £4 million was spent on converting offices into their family home. The property had last been refurbished in 1963, and required the removal of asbestos, new water and heating systems, a rewiring of the electrics and a "simple redecoration".

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's new home needed wooden ceiling beams replaced, as well as floor joists, while an inefficient heating system was also given an overhaul. But the work isn't yet finished. Construction plans recently published by The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead reveals the Sussexes plan to spruce up the outside of the house with redecorated gutters and downpipes, updated doors, windows and outdoor walls.

It's a work in progress, but when it's all complete, what a lovely place it'll be for baby Archie to grow up in.