Inside a fully-renovated Scottish farmhouse secluded in The Outer Hebrides

[light jazz music]

This house is on a Hebridean island

where my husband and I came one time in the summer

and we fell in love with the whole place

and we found this ruin and decided

it would be an amazing place

to build a kind of hideaway retreat from the world.

So we started the restoration project.

Aldridge and Supple came about

because I was lucky enough to work with Scarlett.

Previously I was her client

and we did a cottage together in Oxfordshire.

And when she was looking at moving her work,

we had a chat and that's when we decided it would be nice

to do something together.

Also, my passion secretly has always been interiors

and so it was a chance for me to work

with someone who had all the knowledge,

but I could bring in the kind of creativity

that I like to have.

We have a small studio in London.

We love restoration and trying to be

as sustainable as possible with all our materials.

We've worked with local contractors

to recreate and restore its original beauty

using stonework from the island

and surrounding roads in the area.

We decided to do the double height ceiling

in this space too, which was really lovely.

And there reclaimed beams actually

from an old railway station.

And then we wanted to make a very large window here

so that your whole relationship is with the nature outside.

And so the inside and the outside are,

it's very important that they work together.

So the landscape on this island

is very raw and rough, but also incredibly beautiful.

I mean, you have the sea

and what's lovely is the ever-changing light here

and the Heathers and the plants

and the ferns and there's just so much to reference.

Even the colors of the stones have come

into our palette when we are working on inside the house.

And it's just about the whole sort

of freedom that one feels up here.

We like the mixture, don't we, of sort of like

you might buy something from a dealer

but then again you might find something for 10 pounds.

And I love the mixture of things together.

I think it's about where you place something

and everything has a story, every item has a story.

[soft jazz music]

Well, as a studio, we particularly love textures

and adding layers into each space.

It means that you can work

with these really heavy wools for curtains.

We've added quite beautiful details

with kind of keeping the fringing and the fray.

The sofa fabric, it's a slightly more contemporary design

but we put a a lovely woven wool on it.

It's actually an Irish wool from Sequana,

but it's also very durable

and works really well in the environment and very welcoming.

And then we've layered it with, you know

big heavy wool cushions.

This is the original gable wall of the ruin.

There was actually this tiny little window

that we've recreated, which is a really quirky detail.

There's another little actually nook here

and these are actually lovely max [indistinct] lights

which we've used in a couple of our projects.

But it's a really soft low level light that just

you don't need too much directional light in this space.

We were quite generous with the size of the fireplace.

It's actually an old wood burner

so it just feels like it's been there forever.

We've got these little milking stools that we

love collecting and they work really well

in Scotland and just add character to the space

and it's just such a welcoming spot

and in the kind of environment you are in

it's just perfect to come and cozy up by the fire.

We love to work with the reclaimed materials

and we've used them all over the property where we can.

This in particular we really searched for, it's so

hard to find a coffee table that works proportionately.

And this is one solid piece of timber.

It's probably like 19th century.

And the patina is just so beautiful.

It almost looks like a piece

of driftwood that you've kind of found up here.

And we love the chunky legs and the height.

So we wanted to create like quite a big opening to

obviously maximize this incredible view outside.

We work with an incredible metal worker

called Michael Jakes.

You can open up these two big doors and you are just

at one with the beautiful space outside.

[soft jazz music]

So as with many kitchens, this is the heart of the house.

It sits between the living room

and the snug room and it's just lovely

that everyone can kind of meet in the middle.

But if someone's over there and I'm making some food here

you can have a conversation and it's all very communal

and love sitting around with lots of people.

The table itself is so beautiful that it's so aged

and has lots of patina in it

and it's just a great place to prep

and get ready for a lovely evening.

Scarlett and I wanted to bring quite a lot of texture

into the kitchen just as a theme through the whole house.

And I found this beautiful kind

of butter sink at a reclamation yard.

So it kind of started with the process of that.

And then we looked at this poured concrete

which I love because it just anchors the whole kitchen.

And then we added the aged reclamation wood

which gave it everything.

Just such a beautiful texture.

And then we have lovely open shelves

and paintings just to make it feel more

like a room rather than a kind

of all singing, all dancing, lots of appliances, kitchen.

The red quarry tiles are traditionally used

in houses in Norfolk, but I wanted to use them up here

because I spent a lot of time in my childhood in Norfolk.

So it was a very personal reminder

of the kitchen floors I used to see up there.

And I just love the color here.

It's so pretty.

[soft jazz music]

So we originally designed this space to be a boot room.

It just became such a beautiful

and cozy space that we actually ended

up adding this lovely pair of folk leather chairs.

They were actually found from different places

but they just worked really well together.

And then we actually used some antique fabric

that we had lying around

from old projects to make the cushions.

We've layered in.

And it's been really nice that we've used slightly

different antiques that we don't normally use.

So we've got a lot of Folk, like this pig bench over here.

And then we've also mixed it

in with a Spanish probably 19th century painted piece

which it kind of all works together

and it's things that you might not necessarily

think putting together, but

with the layers they work really well.

The ceiling finish is actually a slight accident.

They're the laugh boards

for the plaster before you put the plaster on

but actually they were so beautiful when they were put up,

we just thought they worked really well with the space

and the timber with the slightly darker timber.

And then the stone, it's just a really beautiful feature.

[soft jazz music]

It's so sweet to have a flower room

because you can come in here after being outside

with the nature, bring everything in and arrange it.

And what I love about the environment here is that

if it's the winter, there's bracken and if it's the spring

there's flowers, there's always something to cut.

The sink is a beautiful heavy old sink

and we put it onto a table.

So the two items were separate and we put 'em together

and then find some freestanding taps.

So it just works beautifully as a whole unit.

And then I bought this lovely set of flower drawings

which I think obviously are completely perfect

in a flower room.

I think what's really nice

in small spaces to have a lot of things.

So in here there's like baskets and the pictures

and the vases and the flowers and it just

if you're on your own in here, it's just really cozy

and just a nice place to contemplate.

[soft jazz music]

With the bedroom we wanted to create

a really peaceful, serene space

even though it's very voluminous and lots of height

but I think with the colors and the textures coming in

you create something that is homey and just simple.

I didn't want to feel overwhelmed in the bedroom.

I wanted to feel very gentle because of the four windows

there's a lot of aspects of the outside

which are again, you know, it's just all

for me about enjoying the outside as much as the inside.

Part of what we love to do as a studio is to

design product ourself and the bed Scarlett designed

with Michael Jakes who did the beautiful doors downstairs.

We made a clear decision to make quite deep window sills

in this room, so with the radiator over here, you can sit

on the sill and be quite warm and look out the window

and the sills were all done in the fish farm wood

which again is a lovely textured wood that we just

have so much joy using.

[soft jazz music]

So this is the bathroom that joins the main bedroom

and the bath was put here deliberately.

So you had the two windows either side

so you could just get in and look out.

And it was a conscious decision not to have any curtains.

So often here the moon can be incredible

so you can just enjoy the night views.

And behind the tone groove wall here we have the shower

and the lou slightly hidden away so

that when you're in the bathroom it's just all

about the bath and the fire and being cozy.

[soft jazz music]

So we're here at the back of the house.

It's a really unusual construction flowing

into the hillside.

Traditionally, quite a lot of the bothy ruins

and cottages were rendered on the outside

but we've actually exposed the stone just

because of the rawness and the beauty of it.

The process of establishing the grass roof

actually worked really well.

It's really matured and at this time

of year it's just beautiful with the wild flowers

and the meadow and it just seems to get better

and better as time goes along.

[Saffron] I really want this place to be somewhere

where I can come or my family or my friends

and just feel really away from a lot of stress or chaos.

I mean, it is for me, a place

of calm and having a sense of just peacefulness.

[soft jazz music]