Converting Churches and Other Listed Buildings

Looking up into the bell tower of a Category A Listed Church near Stirling

Churches are a bit like buses it seems. I've been waiting 20 years to work on one, and in the past few weeks, I've taken 3 enquiries for doing conversions to 3 different churches. We convert Listed Buildings on a semi-regular basis.

For those that don't know, the Church of Scotland property page is absolutely packed at the moment as The Church looks to rationalise it's property holdings.

Don't let the seemingly low prices seduce you though. I've yet to see a church that would be easy to convert. Each one has its own unique challenges, from decorative windows that don't open, odd shaped and sized spaces, a lack of land included in the sale or even graveyards. Churches are also usually listed and this will limit what you'd be allowed to do with the fabric of the building, depending on the category of listing.

However, if the challenges don't put you off and you can get the finances to work then you can end up with something truly special. 

Image is the view looking up into the bell tower of a church, and yes I was too scared/sensible to climb higher without fall protection.

Natural Materials in Construction: Seaweed Insulation

We are massive nerds for new materials and always enjoy getting a new sample to check out. However, this one is more exciting that usual. 

Made from natural materials Søuld seaweed based acoustic insulation from Denmark arrives really nicely packaged, is carbon negative and has a pretty good reaction to fire rating of eurocode A. It has an interesting texture and colouring that would look great in a ceiling with light coloured exposed timber rafters and surprisingly smells pretty good too. The literature describes the smell as "subtle wind and sea" but it seems more warm and malty to me. 

Using natural materials in construction has many benefits including the ability to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it up in a building, hopefully for hundreds of years and maybe give the planet a chance to recover.

Now we just need to find the right project to use it on.

Natural materials can help your building create a healthier environment for you and your family.

If you have a project in Falkirk, Stirling, Linlithgow or Central Scotland that you would like to use as many natural materials as possible get in touch and we would be delighted to show you just how nerdy we can get.

New Build House

One of our favourite things to design is new build houses.

We deliberately don't show much of our design work because we believe that every project is as different as every client so showing examples of past work isn't particularly useful. Instead we like to see what our client likes and work to their tastes because it's their project not ours. 

That being said, I am quite fond of this home we designed this year and it's not always a bad thing to show off just a wee bit.

- 3 bedrooms

- 2 en-suites

- open plan kitchen, living, dining room 

- sitting room

- home office

- utility room/ pantry 

- separate guest accommodation over detached double garage

- covered outdoor spaces for all weather indoor / outdoor living.

Approximately £2.5k per m² +Vat including site abnormal costs. Located in Central Scotland.