Doing up old houses takes time and money, but knowhow is arguably just as important, reckon Sue and Jim Savege. They are no strangers to turning around the fortunes of battered old buildings. “We always seem to find ageing properties that need a bit of TLC,” says Sue. “Our last house was a run-down 16th-century farmhouse in the Lake District which needed a complete makeover. We spent seven years renovating it and adapting it to the 21st century. Before that, we had a traditional cottage in Wales to which we added a large kitchen-diner extension, so we are definitely not building and renovation newbies. We have learnt a lot along the way.”
The couple’s latest endeavour is a cottage in rural Aberdeenshire on a large