The quirky West Lothian family bungalow featuring on Scotland’s Home of the Year

A young family from West Lothian, who took over an abandoned mid-century bungalow, are thrilled to see it feature on Scotland’s Home of the Year 2024.

Fran and Martin’s home Coldwate in Linlithgow, has been pitted against the ‘Pink House’ in Fife and ‘Seaview’ in North Berwick in a bid to make it into the finals of the BBC show.

The East of Scotland episode will air on Monday June 3 at 8.30pm.

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Fran and Martin live with their two young children Bailey and Esme and previously resided in Edinburgh and Singapore before moving to West Lothian.

Fran said: “It’s busy here, lots going on, but we love it here.”

When the couple were looking to move to the area, they had initially had their heart set on another property but it had an offer accepted by another couple. Martin kept calling up most days to see if the deal had fallen through – and one day it had.

The couple were ready to accept the offer Fran threw a curveball and said she had found a different property that they had to consider. She said: “I told him no, that I had seen this other house and I really needed him to come see it.”

Martin, an accountant, was reluctant, the property had been abandoned for over a year so it was cold, damp, mouldy and was stripped back and painted beige everywhere.

The couple went for it. Fran said: “We moved in three days before Christmas 2020, with a Christmas tree on the back of our truck.”

Major work was needed to convert the garage into a part office and lay the foundations for the sunken floor in the lounge. The couple were lucky, they had some family to help. Fran said: “A lot of my family members are tradespeople, so I was able to phone them up and say can you come help?”.

However, Fran, an interior and graphic designer, saw the potential. Today, this fun family house has been cleverly refurbished. Fran has created bespoke pieces as well as sourcing furniture in keeping with age the of the home.

The standout room of the house is a sunken lounge with a built-in bar, made from recycled plastic. The room also features a ‘floating’ sideboard and some quirky lighting.

Fran says a lot of her inspiration came from other places they had viewed and also from online. She said: “I’m a designer and my toxic trait is that every house we went to see had a Pinterest board for it before we even saw it.”

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She added: “I follow a lot of design pages, anything I liked I saved them and would refer back to them.”

Fran and Martin say that their renovation has taken a year and a half, although ‘it’s never completely done’.

When it came to the sunken lounge, Fran said: “It was hard to decide how to approach it, we only had one wall to work with as two are floor-to-ceiling glass and there is only one other wall. We had to really think how we would create it.”

She added: “We wanted to create an intimate space in the lounge with a cosy glow while also being open. We have a beautiful garden, almost an acre of land with lots of mature trees, a pond and surrounded by farmland.

The hopeful pair have more plans after taking a break including doing up the kitchen, focusing on the garden and painting the outside of the house.

Fran talks about the other houses up against hers. She says: “We have no idea who else is in our heat, but I know the properties are so varied, so no idea what to expect.”

Tune in to BBC One on Monday evening at 8.30 pm to see the judges choose between three East Scotland homes.

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