The conversion of this steading (Scottish barn) has been a long process. Almost 3 years ago we decided to sell the house in Aberdeen to finance the building work. Decorating was going well when Phil rang one morning to say ‘You don’t need to worry about the decorating any more’. I thought he had hired someone to help me. ‘The house burned down this morning, there are no walls to put paper on’. This was a real setback and a combination of Insurers and builders took 22 months to get the house back to a marketable state. We thought our troubles were over. We had the money in the bank and could employ a builder and get started. After trying from March until August to find a builder with the time to do it, we decided on drastic action and employed a team of Polish builders. I shall keep this site updated with their progress.

Demolition Was Great Fun. It took a long time to do, but you could see progress every day as buildings disappeared and the piles of rubble grew.

What was slightly less pleasant was removing the 3ft deep accumulation of semi solid cattle slurry from beneath the slatted floors in the cattle court.

We used some of the old roof truss timber and built raised vegetable beds which we filled with the extracted manure. They have produced the best crop of onions I have ever grown.

One cattle court is now empty, we just have to tackle the second one.

It is nice that the building is now starting to grow in size rather than the constant shrinkage we have been seeing.

The Polish workers are doing a tremendous job and their rate of progress has to be seen to be believed.

The walls are now complete. There has been a lot of work involved in this stage because the building had deteriorated whilst waiting with no roof on.There are now holes in the correct places for doors and windows. The insulation and pipes for the underfloor heating are in place beneath the concrete floors.

Next step roof !!