{"id":540066,"date":"2026-03-16T12:09:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540066\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T12:09:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T12:09:31","slug":"its-paradise-we-built-our-dream-house-on-a-loch-for-330000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/540066\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s paradise\u2019 \u2014 we built our dream house on a loch for \u00a3330,000"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne Buchan and her partner, Jim Williamson, had always dreamed of retiring to the west coast of Scotland. The couple previously lived in a semi-detached home in Peterhead, an east coast hub for the oil and gas industry in Aberdeenshire, where Buchan worked as a civil engineer and Williamson as a rope access specialist, painting and replacing pipework while hanging in the air. Four times a year they would go west and indulge in their passion: cold-water scuba diving. \u201cIt\u2019s so scenic, and the weather is better over here,\u201d Buchan explains.<\/p>\n

Contrary to popular perception, scuba diving on Scotland\u2019s west coast provides underwater scenery to rival the tropics. \u201cIt\u2019s not dark, miserable and grey, it\u2019s absolutely stunning,\u201d Buchan, 64, says. \u201cThe fish you see, it\u2019s not just cod, haddock, sole. You\u2019ve got a variety of things that are quite colourful, like lumpsuckers, scorpion fish, pipefish. We get nudibranchs, which are little slugs, lobsters, a variety of different types of crabs, crayfish, dead man\u2019s fingers [a type of coral] and anemones. We get maerl too, which is a coral-like seaweed. You could be in the Red Sea, with all the different colours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding a plot of land on the west coast is quite hard, because almost everybody wants to live there\u201d<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

As working from home became the norm during the pandemic, the couple accelerated their plans to move west and in 2020 started looking for a plot to build on. \u201cFinding a plot of land on the west coast is quite hard, because almost everybody wants to live there since Covid \u2014 it\u2019s become very popular,\u201d Buchan says.<\/p>\n

She scoured local authority portals to see where planning permission had been granted in principle or where applications had been renewed but not yet built on. \u201cI\u2019d contact the applicant and ask if the build was going ahead, or if the plot was possibly for sale. I\u2019d indicate we were interested. So if something did come up, they would remember me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, a solicitor contacted her about a croft comprising two half-acres of land for sale on the Lochcarron estate, near the village of Plockton, due east from Skye and about two hours northwest of Fort William by car. Under crofting rules, however, the buyer would have to either keep animals or grow vegetation \u2014 and although you could build a house there, the land was never yours; the estate owner could take it away any time if you hadn\u2019t complied with the regulations. \u201cObviously we weren\u2019t too keen on that,\u201d Buchan says.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s cosy home has a wood-burner, underfloor heating, triple-glazed windows and ground-mounted solar panels<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The couple declined. But six months later, the solicitor contacted her again and said he had found a buyer for one of the two plots: a crofter with livestock. If they \u201cdecrofted\u201d the other half of the land on the shore, would she be interested? \u201cWe were delighted,\u201d Buchan says.<\/p>\n

They paid \u00a3100,000 for the land, which had planning permission for a four-bedroom, 1,600 sq ft stone house with a turf roof and a bow-fronted window. The couple then approached the Highlands-based architect Fraser Stewart and asked if he could alter the plans to make the house smaller \u2014 two bedrooms, a home office and 1,200 sq ft \u2014 and to rearrange the layout so the main bedroom had a loch view, as well as the living and dining room. <\/p>\n

Buchan wasn\u2019t keen on a turf roof \u2014 she preferred sedum (aka stonecrop), which is more colourful. And to save money, the couple requested the cladding be changed from stone to Scottish larch.<\/p>\n

The project started in September 2022. They first built a garage, which housed the infrastructure for the electricity and water supply. They then built a two-bedroom log cabin to live in during the build. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to put a caravan there, as I think they look ugly,\u201d Buchan says.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n

\u201cWe watch the sunrise in the morning, and sit in the lounge and watch the sunset in the evening\u201d<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough the house isn\u2019t big, having the large windows and panoramic view makes it feel very open\u201d<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

The prefab timber-frame house, delivered in January 2024, was supplied by Fleming Homes, who made it windtight and watertight in three weeks. The rest of the house was completed by September 2024. The budget came to \u00a3330,000. Buchan reckons they saved \u00a315,000 by buying the bathrooms from B&Q and doing all the painting and decorating themselves.<\/p>\n

The house is toasty, thanks to a wood-burner, underfloor heating, triple-glazed windows and ground-mounted solar panels keep the energy bills down. \u201cOften the house is 25C inside with no heating at all, [just] from the solar gain,\u201d Buchan says.<\/p>\n

But surely it rains all winter on the west coast? \u201cIt does when you\u2019re in Fort William, Oban or Glasgow. But not in Plockton,\u201d Buchan adds. <\/p>\n

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Plockton is warmed by the Gulf Stream and dotted with palm trees. \u201cIt\u2019s renowned for its microclimate,\u201d Buchan says. \u201cWhile the whole country was in darkness over January and a lot of February, we were getting sunshine most days. I think it has some of the best weather in Scotland. All the bad weather comes off the Atlantic and hits Skye first before it gets to us. Very often it\u2019s blown out by the time it gets here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Loch<\/p>\n

The property looks out across Loch Carron<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

How does it feel now that they\u2019re settled? \u201cIt\u2019s paradise,\u201d Buchan says. \u201cAlthough the house isn\u2019t big, having the large windows and panoramic view makes it feel very open. We can lie in bed and watch the sunrise in the morning, and sit in the lounge and watch the sunset in the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buchan has retired since moving from east to west. Before she did, she found her job a lot less stressful, staring at the loch and watching the wildlife. \u201cThe other day I just got my kayak and went out on the water for a couple of hours. We get otters here. There was a humpback whale and dolphins around. I go swimming and diving all year. The diving community is really tight. Friends who I haven\u2019t seen in ages come up here to dive because it\u2019s so pretty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

An aerial view of Buchan and Williamson\u2019s home<\/p>\n

ROB WILKINSON\/BOB TEDDY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Williamson, 56, has switched jobs since the move. \u201cIn Peterhead, his work was hard going. He was often working at quite a height exposed to the elements. He works as a HGV driver now. His health has improved. He actually enjoys his work most of the time, because he\u2019s driving around really scenic areas \u2014 Skye, Plockton, Glenelg \u2014 and meets people. They\u2019re generally friendlier on the west coast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the couple\u2019s new home is remote, it has a strong sense of community: they invited neighbours for Hogmanay and had 30 in the house. \u201cIn the nine years I lived in Peterhead we only knew the names of three of our neighbours and rarely spoke to them. Here we know everyone\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n

To borrow a phrase from the Village People: go west, life is peaceful there.<\/p>\n

The next National Homebuilding & Renovating Show is on March 19-22 at the NEC, Birmingham. Free tickets for Times readers here: homebuildingshow.co.uk\/the-times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anne Buchan and her partner, Jim Williamson, had always dreamed of retiring to the west coast of Scotland.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-540066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}