WORDS CAROLINE EDNIE PHOTOS DAVID BARBOUR
Having lived in a late Georgian villa for nearly 30 years, Graham and Betty McNicol decided it was the right time to downsize. While their ideas regarding the style of property they’d like to live in weren’t fixed, they didn’t want to move out of the catchment area of this picturesque pocket of rural Angus that they were so fond of. “We looked at various options, including buying a smaller place in the village or converting our stable outhouse into a dwelling,” says Graham. “But we decided to pursue the idea of building a new home in the little paddock attached to our manse.”