EXTENDING THE OLD MILL

When a storm left their home flooded, Susan and Rob Caslake took the opportunity to turn a negative into a positive by taking on a major home improvement project

WORDS CAROLINE EDNIE

Left: The fabric of the existing extension, onto which the new dining area addition has been built, was upgraded

PHOTOS DAVID GORDON

Susan and Rob Caslake had always intended to make improvements to the family home in rural Aberdeenshire where they have lived since 2014. However, flooding damage caused by a storm in the summer of 2020 forced their hand. The couple turned this event around, as it led them to take on a more ambitious project. In doing so, they have managed to create their ideal long-term family home.

Catalyst for change

The Caslake’s home is a former water mill that had been converted into a house in the 1990s. “When we bought it 11 years ago, it had planning permission for an extension, which we put in the back of our minds as something we might do in the future,” says Susan. “When we moved in, we had a two-year-old and another on the way, so we weren’t keen to get into a building project straight away.” They were holding out for the right time both in terms of their finances and family life. But, when a big storm hit in August 2020, sudden rain on the quite low-lying house brought surface water inside the ground floor of the property. “It was horrendous – the drainage wasn’t up to the standard it should have been,” says Susan. “We were lucky that the ground floor is on two different levels. The kitchen-diner and the study on the upper level were fine, but our sitting room, bathroom, entrance and hallway were all flooded.”

Everything had to be dried out and stripped back to the subfloor. “All of this was in the middle of Covid, too, when Bob and I (we are both hospital doctors) had to keep working,” says Susan. “It was also during Pandemic restrictions.” The damage and upheaval was difficult, but also precipitated the couple’s decision to look at improving the whole house once and for all. “We had some insurance money from the flooding,” says Susan. “But we thought that we should look at the bigger picture to renovate and extend to try and make a positive thing out of a negative.”