How to add value to a traditional West End home

Owning a high-end property in Aberdeen’s West End is a dream of many. A historic building in a prime location, with beautiful and intricate traditional features throughout.

Whether you’ve inherited your home, or landed your dream property, there are many clever and careful ways you can protect your home’s history and make it suitable for the 21st century. Not only will these alterations make your home more liveable, but they could add value to your property too.

In this blog post, Richard Tinto, our Managing Director, shares a few ideas and suggestions, based on his experience of working with high-end properties in this part of our city, to help you maximise your home.

Work with what you have

“When looking to update a traditional property, I would always start by identifying if there are any unique, historical features worth retaining and make sure these are integral to the design.

“The most impressive projects in the West End are those that protect and enhance the beautiful original intricacies of a traditional home, and combine these with new modern and spacious elements.

“Instead of being too keen to create something brand new, we always work with our clients to unearth the detail that we can use as a base to create something completely individual to you, and ensure we optimise the value.”

Open up the space and make it more usable

“Many West End properties in Aberdeen have very separated and closed-off layouts, not suited to modern living. While there is usually plenty of space on the upper floors, kitchens are often quite small and the rear of the properties can be dark and closed off from the rest of the house, with no natural flow.

“Through effective space planning and design, we can easily solve these issues. Here are a few suggested routes you could go down...

1. Create an open plan kitchen, living and dining area, and bring that family-friendly environment you can expect from a new build into your period property. This can be done by removing walls, or by adding an extension to the rear of your home, to connect rooms and create a new heart for your home. This is the most common alteration that adds the most value, and it’s the direction we went in for our project at Desswood Place, as well as our current renovation projects at Rubislaw Den South and Bayview Road.

2. Toilets and showers are often in short supply in older properties, so adding additional facilities such as an ensuite or cloakroom, can really help to make your space more functional - especially if you have a growing family or often have guests visiting.

3. If you have an attic, you could potentially renovate this space to create a stunning master bedroom, dressing room and ensuite. This provides you with even more living space on the lower floors, and opens up the house by making use of an often overlooked space.

“Whatever route you choose, it’s all about making a traditional, high-end property more suitable as a modern living environment, and working with old layouts to transform them into spaces that have a logical flow through the home.”

Embrace modern features

“The character and integrity of your home is of course of the utmost importance, but you shouldn’t be scared to embrace modern elements too.

“Sometimes to create the most spectacular home, you have to be brave and try something new - combining the worlds of traditional and modern architecture and design.

“Using glass, modern finishes, furniture, and accessories, along with a modern kitchen, dining, living space, can all work wonderfully with the contrasting character and charm of an old building. And it can have the biggest impact on adding value to your home.”

You can get inspiration from some of our residential projects by clicking here, or if you’re interested in chatting with the Tinto team, get in touch below.