The fact that Alison Stewart and Duncan Whittaker got engaged at home in the middle of their property renovation proves it has been a real labour of love.
After falling head over heels for the traditional home in Craigton Road, the couple have poured their hearts and souls into creating their dream family home for their beautiful little boy Orrin.
Here, Alison shares their fascinating renovation journey.
Craigton Road, Aberdeen
Who: Alison Stewart, 32, who works as a teacher, her fiance, Duncan Whittaker, 34, a surgeon and their little boy Orrin, one.
What: A three-bedroom, semi-detached house period property which dates back to the 1930s.
Where: Craigton Road, near Mannofield
As told to Rosemary Lowne
“When we first saw this property, we fell in love with it. It was a bit of a doer-upper but we were bowled over by the potential the house had. As Duncan likes to say, the property has good bones and a nice structure.
We moved in November 2020, just after the first Coronavirus lockdown and before the second one. The decorations weren’t to our taste as the hallway had a maroon carpet and green walls and the kitchen had purple walls and a velvet curtain over the French doors.
We made the rule that we would only do one area of the home at a time so that the rest of the house was pretty liveable. So we started with the kitchen and the snug at the back of the house.
They were both quite dark spaces with purple tones and green cabinets. I wanted everything to be quite neutral and bright to complement the skylight and the big doors to the garden.
So we stripped everything back, painted the walls plain white using Dulux Brilliant White and put in a big mirror from Maisons du Monde to try to bounce the light around. We used grey furniture from our previous flat and there’s a farmhouse table I found on Etsy.
After that we worked on the hallway which was a labour of love. We’ve put lots of black and white family photos on the wall up the stairs but we also wanted to add some texture too.
One of the picture frames has a strip of the original wallpaper which was found behind a radiator that was taken off the wall. It’s seems a bit random but to us it means a lot as it’s a nod to the history of the house. We also have Duncan’s grandpa’s lucky coin in a frame at the top of the stairs.
The tiled hallway floor was a big job for Duncan but his brother-in-law, who is a builder, helped out. We used tiles from Topps Tiles and we love the effect it has created.
Our favourite room though is probably the front living room as Duncan proposed to me from inside the fireplace. He had been working on the fireplace and had stashed the box with the ring inside. When he asked me to help him, the box tumbled out and he went down on one knee to propose, it was very romantic.
Period property in Aberdeen full of pre-loved bargains
I love Facebook Marketplace as you can find some really good bargains on there like the brass, peacock style fire guard I got for just £5.
We also love Annie Mo’s in Aberdeen, that’s where I got our green sofa.
Upstairs, our bedroom was originally pink but I’m not a pink girl so we painted the ceiling and two of the walls Card Room Green by Farrow and Ball while we used a Paisley print style wallpaper from Lucie Annabel behind our bed. We also put in wall lights from Pooky to make the room cosier.
For Orrin’s room, we stripped back his bedroom when I was pregnant and I actually went into labour the day after. I wanted his room to be neutral but with some colour so I’ve used the colour Cargo from COAT together with some blue.
For us, this project has given us new skills as Duncan’s learned a lot of DIY and joinery stuff and I’ve learned a lot about decoration and colour palettes. It’s nice now as our friends ask us advice which makes us feel really good.
You can check out Alison and Duncan’s Instagram page @thegranitecityhome
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