The light and airy house Maisie and William McCrea built in Aberdour has even won the neighbours over

IF YOU were to believe everything you see on Grand Designs, building your own home is a fraught business that invariably means dropping the architect as soon as you get your hands on the plans.

But it need not be that way, as Maisie and William McCrea, proud owners of a spectacular new house in the Fife village of Aberdour, can testify. Their relationship with their architect, Svein Mjeldheim, was such a success that they remain on hugging terms with him five months after moving into their new home.

When they retired recently, Maisie, a caterer and former home economics teacher, and William, a psychiatrist, decided to downsize from their eight-bedroom, stone house in Aberdour – built in 1896 – which Maisie ran as a B&B for 18 years. They wanted to stay in the village, which has beautiful beaches overlooking the Firth of Forth, a 12th-century church and one of the best-preserved castles in Scotland, yet is only 30 minutes by train from Edinburgh.

By chance, friends there wanted to sell part of their large garden and already had planning permission to build on it. The McCreas wanted to design their own house to meet their personal requirements and taste. Through a mutual friend, they met Mjeldheim, whose practice is in Lundin Links, and instantly ‘clicked’. The plot faces a street of listed houses in a conservation area and, despite initial resistance, all their neighbours have now been inside the house and approve of it. The trick was to design something that looked traditional without it being a pastiche of its early 19th-century neighbours, with a modern interior and rear walls almost entirely of glass, facing onto a largely decked garden. “Not imposing at the front, but breathtaking inside,” is William’s description.

You enter through the main door (discreetly located at the side of the house) into a small lobby, noteworthy only for its large charcoal portrait of two friends – drawn by the McCreas’ son Ewen. Then you turn into the open-plan ground floor and, Tardis-like, the house opens up before you, huge and bathed in light. The utility room, with its wooden drying pulley and Belfast sink, is at the front, the tiny windows facing the street giving no sign that inside lies a modern kitchen and dining area with glass patio doors. A couple of steps lead down into a single-storey wing that makes the house L-shaped, where the sitting room has floor-to-ceiling glass doors overlooking the patio deck. These garden-room doors slide right back to create a seamless transition between indoors and out.

Alongside, boasting a 50in Panasonic screen, is the cinema room, which can be closed off from the open-plan ground floor by a door that slides into the wall when the room isn’t being used for watching films, thus maintaining the flow of light.

The Disability Discrimination Act requires any new-build home to have a bedroom and bathroom on the same level. The McCreas’ house has a luxurious wheelchair-accessible ground-floor wetroom with a Grohe shower and basin. Its stunning non-slip black pebble floor resembles those typical of Greece’s Dodecanese islands; the stones appear to be set into grout but are supplied set on mesh, made by Porcelanosa, as are the grey wood-effect tiles.

The house has a footprint of 160 square metres, the plot size is 370 square metres. But downsizing from such a large house to one with only three bedrooms was no problem for the couple because, they say, their new home is “less claustrophobic than the old place and the light here is absolutely amazing”.

Just as the traditional façade contrasts with the very modern rear, the furniture and fittings are a quirky blend of antique and modern, designer pieces and high-street bargains. The ground-floor bedroom, presently used as a study, contains a leather-look sofa-bed that Maisie reveals came from CostCo and the velour cushions on it from TK Maxx. The oak kneehole desk is Victorian, the rug antique, and individual touches also include a sepia photograph of William’s forebears, while the grey felt chair, based on Arne Jacobsen’s 1956 Swan chair, holds a little yellow patchwork cushion that Maisie made as a student.

In the dining area, an oak settle and distressed faux Jacobean dresser sit alongside a Habitat dining table and six Spanish STUA chairs in cobalt, sea green and white, bought for £110 each at Morrison Street Sales in Edinburgh, which also supplied the Ercol coffee table in the garden room. The Japanese triangular glass table in the cinema room and the Eames-style chair and footstool in the garden room came from Interior Icons in Auchtermuchty. In the kitchen, state-of-the-art Neff and Siemens appliances are complemented by exposed brick walls and vintage blue Cornishware. Elsewhere, contemporary paintings by Alison Dunlop share wall space with Edwardian landscapes, and bronze Lloyd Loom chairs and Ikea storage units co-habit with antique Oriental rugs and kilims from Isfahan Carpets in Broxburn.

A variegated rusty-pink brick with deep grey grouting features strongly in the design, as the pillar between the utility room and kitchen, a wall between the garden room and cinema room and as display ledges. The broad oak boards throughout the house, which conceal under-floor heating, are by Kahrs Flooring, while solar panels on the roof and a gas boiler provide hot water.

Up the glass-and-timber staircase – designed by the architect – is the master bedroom, with its beamed ceiling, antique brass bed, stained-glass window and views over the Forth. Both this and the guest bedroom have Ideal Standard en suite bathrooms. Above the master is a mezzanine floor with a skylight, which Maisie thinks will be the lightest place in winter and plans to use as her computer and reading room.

The construction work began in March 2010, and was completed just 14 months later. The McCreas praise everyone involved in the project – the building contractor, David Stewart of Buckhaven, the project co-ordinator Frazer Anderson and Park Bathrooms of Perth, who supplied the bathrooms – as well as their architect.

“We were inspired by Scandinavian design and wanted something fresh, simple and sharp, with a feeling of light and shadow,” says William. “We met Svein and found we spoke the same language. It’s a very peaceful and relaxed house.”

But the biggest compliment paid about it, he jokes, is that “Svein’s wife loves the house so much she’s threatening to move in.”