Scotland's Home of the Year: Skye's tiny tin-clad cabin

Who: Producer and filmmaker couple Lena Vurma, 42, and Thor Klein, 45.

What: A seriously tiny tin-clad cabin, inspired by Scandinavian and Japanese design – “and Highland agricultural sheds” – with a mezzanine floor.

Where: Their cabin in on a croft on the Minginish peninsula on Skye, overlooking Loch Harport.

Scotland's Home of the Year's Skye tin-clad cabin in the foreground, with the loch and a rainbow behind. — The cabin’s position works well with the Skye landscape. Image: Lena Vurma

Lena shares their story about the bothy “built by a village” and what it feels like to be on Scotland’s Home of the Year…

“I think we really kind of did Scotland’s Home of the Year for our mums – because they like these kind of programmes.

It was very strange, because usually we’re the film team going to other people’s places.

I think that was a challenging thing to kind of know what to expect. But it was all good, in the end.

We bought the croft in Autumn 2020 – there was basically half a hill, no tracks, no mains, nothing on it.

From Berlin film school to a Skye croft

Thor is from Germany and I’m from Switzerland, and we met in Berlin.

Every winter we came to the Highlands to decompress. We stayed in bothies and cabins and shepherd’s huts and yurts all over. 2016 was the first time on Skye.

One just led to another and we started to look for a plot of land. In the end, it was really the landscape calling us – and the very strong community.

Scotland's Home of the Year's Skye cabin as just a wooden frame, with a caravan next to it. — The wooden frame is up, alongside the caravan the couple were living in during the build. Image: Lena Vurma

Because of Brexit, we had to move there and have our address there quite quickly.

So we put a caravan on the croft in the November. It was another year before we could start building.

We stayed three winters in the caravan while the building happened around us.

Scotland’s Home of the Year Skye: A small space with a big view

We were always kind of attracted to small spaces, and wanted to live in a small space.

But at the same time, if it’s surrounded by this kind of grandiose landscape, it doesn’t feel so small.

You look out of the window and see the horizon – we can even see the northern lights from our cabin.

I just really love how the windows frame the landscape outside – even from the bed. One side we see the sunrise over the Cuillins, then the other side we have perfectly framed the sunset over Loch Harport.

Scotland's Home of the Year's Skye cabin with just one of the great views from the sitting room. — Just one of the views from the cabin. Image: IWC Media

So it’s just a small room – but it’s a really big view.

You can stare out of the window the whole day and it doesn’t get boring.

Someone called it a small cathedral, because of the headspace.

All the assembly work was done by our builder, on the croft – nothing pre-built.

When the wood frame was done, we needed extra people to erect it – so we just asked a lot of neighbours.

Six people in outdoor clothes helping to erect the wooden frame of a house in the rain. — The community came together to help with the big jobs. Image: Lena Vurma

It was quite nice that everybody came together, we didn’t have any cranes or anything.

Everyone lives close by – our builder became like family.

It was all hyper-local – except us, I guess.

‘Scandi-Japanese style with an agricultural shed feel’

What we also like is to think twice: do we really need this? Beautiful things, of course, not just functional. I think our space is not just functional space, but also very peaceful.

We just like this minimalistic style – let’s call it Scandi-Japanese style, with an agricultural shed feel from the outside.

Being filmmakers, we made a mood board like you do in film for our architect Ian Grant. We used materials that are beautiful, but also easy to get on Skye.

Scotland's Home of the Year's Skye cabin: An interior showing light wood, large windows and great views. — The Scandi-Japanese-agri-shed style. Image: Lena Vurma

We thought a lot about colour – we landed on a kind of a grey with green in it. And we just really like that when the weather changes, the colour kind of changes as well.

It depends on the light – it can be a very dark green, but then sometimes it’s a very light grey. It really fits in very well into the landscape.

That was always very important for us that we’re not sticking out, but blending in.

Scotland’s Home of the Year: Patience was key to build

I think the challenge was just to kind of be patient. Everything always takes longer than you think.

We had some challenges with building materials, they were delayed by the pandemic and then war in Ukraine.

Steel prices went up.

But it was all a bit like filmmaking: to know where you make changes and which vision you want to hang onto because if you change that, it will change the whole look.

In filmmaking, we’re very used to that, to trade things sometimes. But also trying to hold onto the core that makes it something you want it to be.

You can trade some things, but some things are essential.