The house had been neglected for decades, it seemed. We saw it for the first time on rainy evening at around dusk after a long windy drive up from Lochearnhead. The house felt dark and scary, but after the initial reaction, to me it was just sad, if a house can be such a thing. The roof had long since given up and it felt like it was raining as hard inside as outside. The house was made up of a lot of small rooms upstairs and three bathrooms clustered towards the centre. Downstairs the house was again split up into pantries, living accommodation, the kitchen and what had been the servant’s quarters with various parts added over the years.

Everything was wet, the walls, the ceiling, the floors, even the dooks. But the structure was sound so we had to strip everything out of the house and put it back together bit by bit.

The pictures show how it was and how it is now. Beyond how it looks, it feels completely different now and once we had grandchildren running around and laughing, kids playing music and games, singing and taking, the whole energy of the house changed.