Steve and Alison Harvey spent a year living in their former farm cottage in Fife before extending it.
“It’s a mistake to change a house before you know how the sun and the seasons affect the light or which rooms you’ll use most,” Alison says.
Remilton was once two farm cottages that were knocked into one and extended in the 1960s. Steve (57) and Alison (54) bought it in 2001 and extended it between 2003-2007.
The house sits down a long tree-lined private drive off the A91 a short distance past the Scottish Deer Centre and is surrounded by countryside.
The couple added a 200sqm steel frame extension that houses a master bedroom and en suite upstairs and an open plan family room and kitchen at ground level.
A design engineer, Steve built the staircase and the couple carried out much of the work themselves.
The extension is the same height as the original cottage but has higher ceilings, an effect that was achieved by digging deeper foundations to lower the floor level.
The front door opens into a large, airy dining hall. A living room with bay windows sits off to one side. A few steps from the hall lead through archway into the extension – a TV is cleverly placed in what was once the window of the original cottage.
There’s a utility room and shower room downstairs, along with two bedrooms.
Upstairs are three more bedrooms, two of which share a Jack n’ Jill balcony. The master has its own large west-facing balcony and an en suite.
Steve and Alison have spent countless hours thinking about details that wouldn’t even occur to most people renovating their homes.
Glass on the master bedroom balcony is tinted brown to match the stone while the other balcony has grey glass to harmonise with the slates.
Steve points to the stairs and a doorway beyond. “Every angle is at 45 or 135 degrees,” he explains. “That continues with the layout of the garden. The cumulative effect of matching all the angles gives the house a much better flow.”
There’s an enormous garage with WC and a loft area, greenhouse, shed and log store. The garden wraps round the house and a patch of woodland beyond a stone wall contains the foundations of a building that once sat there. Decking surrounds the house and forms a path towards the garage.
Steve and Alison are moving to Broughty Ferry, where they’re in the process of buying a house. Are they planning another extension as grand as this one?
“The next one might not be on quite this scale,” Alison smiles. “But we’ll definitely be doing something big with it. We’ve got the bug now.”
Remilton, Hilton of Carslogie, Cupar, is on sale with Galbraith for o/o £645,000.