SIDE ORDER OF SATISFACTION

LIFE IN THIS CONVERTED FARM BUILDING HAS BEEN MASSIVELY IMPROVED, THANKS TO A RECONFIGURED INTERIOR AND A SMART NEW EXTENSION.

- Caroline Ednie

Repurposing an old building is to be applauded in these eco-conscious days, but sometimes a straightforward conversion can only take you so far. This house in rural Aberdeenshire is a good example; it was an outbuilding on a pig farm until 15 years ago, when it was turned into a two-bedroom house. Its current owner, in conjunction with Stonehaven’s Hyve Architects, has taken it on a far more ambitious design journey, sympathetically remodelling and extending it to create what is effectively a new three-bedroom home. And its environmentally friendly credentials have, if anything, been greatly improved in the process.

“Building in flexibility for the future was my main motivation,” explains the owner, who has lived here for the past five years. “Adding a third bedroom to the original two would give us much needed space should circumstances require my mother or other elderly family members to move in.”

Initially, ideas were explored to do this by altering the internal layout with a small extension to the rear to house an en-suite and a utility room. “But I realised this option didn’t really create the spaces we needed – the bedrooms would have remained quite small and the living space would have been even more cramped than it already was. So the design brief changed to incorporate an extension containing a master bedroom and en-suite, a new entrance, and a way to make better use of our existing space.”