Recipe for comfort: All the ingredients for a beautiful home

The artwork above the fireplace in the drawing room is by Fraser Taylor, while the sofas are Robin Days Forum. Picture: Neil Hanna

It’s a fairly unusual thing, these days, to ask someone when they purchased their home and receive an answer dating back more than 20 years. Most people tend to up sticks and move more frequently than that, whether for work or family reasons, or simply due to itchy feet and the need for a new project or challenge. But then you’ll meet someone who simply made the right decision when they chose their home all those years ago, and never wanted to leave thanks to a combination of a great location, great neighbours, and a house that evolved with them.

Back in 1990, Robert Gillan had been living in a double upper flat in Edinburgh’s New Town when he spotted this three-bedroom B-listed terraced Georgian house on the market at 33 Upper Gray Street in the city’s Newington area, just south of the city centre. Robert had been looking for a house with a garden for his dog. “As soon as I walked through the front door, the place had a lovely atmosphere,” recalls Robert, a textile designer who works as director of knowledge exchange and director of externality at Edinburgh College of Art.

Robert viewed the house on a Saturday and made his offer on the Monday; the decision was instinctive. “It was a project,” he acknowledges. “The house hadn’t been upgraded since the 1950s, but it didn’t feel neglected or unloved; it just felt right.”

Birch cabinets in the kitchen. Picture: Neil Hanna

The accommodation is arranged over two floors, with the drawing room, master bedroom and en-suite, and a second bedroom on the first floor; and with a large bow-ended bedroom on the ground level (which could easily be a sitting room) along with a bathroom and, now, a large dining-kitchen that extends the full width of the house at the rear, with giant sliding doors opening on to the garden.

Straight away Robert, who now lives with his partner David Gillan-Reid and the couple’s Boston terriers Ripley and Laika, recognised the potential for creating this dining-kitchen by combining three previous spaces: the existing small kitchen, a long narrow bathroom, and an equally narrow bedroom.

Robert brought in architect friend and colleague Willie Brown, who helped with the reconfiguration and design. Opening up this space and creating the garden connection simply made the house work as, before this, the kitchen had felt too small for the property. Slate floor tiles enhance the indoor-outdoor connection, while understated birch cabinets are combined with a stainless steel Smeg range cooker and retro-styled Smeg fridge-freezer.

Robert sourced the overscaled sliding doors after seeing the same design used in a local bar, and had these doors made by a joinery firm in Duddingston.

The Arne Jacobsen dining table and chairs, meanwhile, give the first clue to his passion for mid-century and vintage design, which extends to both furniture and accessories.

This interior is filled with beautiful finds, from the collections of ceramics including pieces by Stig Lindberg, Bitossi and Aldo Londi, to the vintage rosewood Heal’s sideboard in the drawing room. Robert has been collecting since he was a design student at Glasgow School of Art. Back then, he would head to the Barras market in the search for Poole vases or the like, and he developed a great eye for spotting the gems.

Over the years, his eye has refined. “I’ve become more selective about what I buy and I’d rather go for quality than quantity,” he agrees.

As you might imagine from a textile designer, he has amassed a considerable collection of 1950s and 1960s textiles – which he wouldn’t part with.

“Although I collect fabrics, I can’t live with a lot of pattern,” Robert says. “That’s why there’s no wallpaper here.” Instead, he and David have chosen a subtle palette of Farrow & Ball hues that act as a backdrop for the artworks and accessories, including artworks by Fraser Taylor and a fantastic over-scaled photo of Ripley by photographer Euan Myles.

There are cushions in printed fabric designed in the 1950s by the Scottish designer and artist Robert Stewart for Liberty, while the Heal’s sideboard now displays a selection of ceramic pieces from Spain, Italy and Sweden, alongside Tremaen pottery from Cornwall.

Robert has a fantastic eye for editing and combining pieces, and this handsome yet unfussy house has provided the perfect backdrop. Even at the outset Robert could see that this interior had good bones, including period fireplaces, cornices, and astragal windows and working timber shutters.

The Victorian encaustic tiles in the hallway, although not original – the house dates from the 1840s after all – set the tone as you arrive, as does the staircase with its decorative balustrade.

This house and its direct neighbours on Upper Gray Street were built for sea captains berthed in the port of Leith, and there was originally a well at the bottom of the garden. Now this garden offers a secluded haven. Previously laid to lawn, this space has been redesigned with interesting sculptural planting and a pond. As Robert says: “You’d never think that this garden was going to be at the back of this house.”

One of the more recent additions is the en-suite shower room that Robert and David created for the master bedroom. This is very smart with slate wall and floor tiling, underfloor heating, and sleek fittings, including a large walk-in shower with a rainfall showerhead, set behind a glazed screen.

Yet this house can take contemporary detail just as well as it can handle vintage styling. The bow-ended bedroom on the ground floor and the drawing room above are thundered with light, while the proportions are perfect. No room is too small, but neither is any so big that it feels cold or imposing.

Now, it’s time for Robert and David to move on to another project. “We’d never have left this house if we hadn’t found a special project with a really beautiful garden,” Robert says, acknowledging that it will be an emotional departure after 23 years.

“I think of this house like a cake mix: it has so many different ingredients, and when you put them all together you get a really beautiful house.”

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Offers over £565,000; Balfour + Manson Property (0131-200 1234, www.balfour-manson.co.uk)

Closing date has been set for Friday 24 May, 11am