Finalising paperwork, arranging the movers, unpacking, decorating and getting settled in your new Scotia Home – there’s plenty to do when you move house, but we know it’s just the beginning of your story.

In our first Customer Spotlight, we hear from Robyn and Troy Bruce – a young couple who have been inspiring us all with their adventures on Instagram (@thebrucestories) and showing off some personal touches they’ve made to their new home at Scotia's Dubford development in Bridge of Don, Aberdeen. 

Both from very small towns in Aberdeenshire, we moved into the big city over 6 years ago to live and work, and in July 2019 we moved into our new Scotia home at Dubford. We have loved every minute of our first year in our home sweet home!

Location, Location, Location

Dubford at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen was an ideal choice as we wanted to be on the right side of town for visiting our families. Neither of us had spent any time in the area before but when we first met with the lovely ladies at Scotia and had a look around, we fell in love with the area immediately!

Being from such small towns, we also wanted somewhere out of the hustle and bustle of city life, something a little quieter – Dubford ticked every box.

Light and Space

We chose our home as we loved the mix between the new build and the Victorian characteristics – the house has so much to offer, with large rooms and gorgeous finishes. The high ceilings and the bay windows create such a lovely feel and have allowed us to add different features such as coving and panelling which we are eager to get started on!

What we love the most is the bright open spaces within different areas of the house – the kitchen has a lovely area near the French doors which lets lots of light in, and upstairs on the landing there is a wonderful space which we have transformed into a reading corner, or ‘cosy corner’ as we call it.

As much as we love older style houses and the thought of renovating an old house into something new, the beauty of a new build was probably the ‘blank canvas’ it offers. It meant that we could make the house our own and style it exactly how we liked.

Personal Style

We are very similar in terms of what we like and dislike – both very outgoing people who enjoy the finer things in life. Big fans of an adventure – and when it came to moving into our new house this was the start of another one! We really enjoyed planning and designing every room – and although we have more we want to do in the future, it’s feeling more like a home every day. When we first moved in, we didn’t have a certain style in mind, however as time went on every room came together exactly how we wanted. For the majority of the rooms in our house, we found key items that we loved and worked from there.

Since moving into our house, we always said that we wouldn’t rush into buying items for the sake of it – after all, it’s a house for life. Our house is so homely and we feel so at home but we still have so much to do – we love to come up with new ideas!

Picture Perfect

Before we moved into our home we chose our flooring, which was a tough decision, let me tell you! We ended up going for a mix of Amtico hard flooring and Cormar carpets. It was made a lot easier by the wonderful staff at Frasers of Ellon, who were so helpful – especially with some of the laying patterns we had given them.

As soon as we first viewed the house I knew I wanted a mosaic tiled vestibule area in a marble and monochrome tile. This is our favourite part of the house to this day and we worked the rest of the flooring around the small section of vestibule tiling! This small area shaped our hallway and we have gone all monochrome with the styling of this area.

We also decided we wanted a stair runner, as I always had visions of a huge gallery wall up the stairs. When it came to us moving into the house, Scotia kindly prepared and painted the staircase ready for the carpet to be laid. This was a huge help and I would 100% recommend this.

Time to Prepare

Lockdown has been great for finding extra time to do different jobs around the house – putting up shelving and preparing the nursery for our new arrival, but also just enjoying time in our home together. We finally finished our stairway gallery wall which was a huge work in progress – and for every frame I added, I decided I needed another two!

We have almost completed our cosy corner and added a lovely floor lamp (from Annie Mo’s of course!), as well as an armchair, matching blinds and pelmets (from Willow Cottage Shop) which has really changed how this big space looks.

Thinking of Buying?

When it comes to buying a house, everyone is different and everyone has their own reasons for why they have gone for a certain house. If you are like us and are considering buying a new build home then I would say to be open-minded!

Just because it’s a new build doesn’t mean that you have to go for all things ‘modern’ – you can truly make it your own!

Check out Robyn and Troy’s latest additions to their new build Scotia home in Aberdeen on their Instagram – @thebrucestories