Story

Who are you?

My name is Nick Grant. I live in central Scotland with my wife and son. You won’t see them on here or my public social media as they don’t want to be online and I totally respect that. I’m originally from South Yorkshire, lived most of my life in London and moved to Scotland in 2012, my wife is from Scotland.

Where does your love of the past come from?

I guess it started with the cars. I’ve never been into modern cars and love the design, smell, feel and driving experience of a classic. Hot Rods, Kustoms and Air-cooled Volkswagens really light my fire and I’ve been around them for over 30 years. I’ve worked part time as a photographer for several car magazines during the last 15 years, predominantly Custom Car. The cars, clothes, furniture, Tiki are all part of a culture cocktail that resonates with me.

There seems to be a strong Americana theme?

I hit my teenage years in the 80s and there was a huge American influence in TV at the time. The 80s time of affluence and the style harked back to the 50s in the US and that was literally linked in films like “Back to the Future”. I was lucky enough to travel to California in the mid 80s and came back with a skateboard and a head full of ideas. I’ve since travelled to 20 states and hope to visit them all one day.

So what’s the story of the house and garden?

We moved from London to Scotland in 2012 and started to look for a house with character. Most people in the UK think period features need to include fireplaces, ornate coving, tiled hallways and other characteristics from the Victorian or Edwardian era. We were looking for parquet, big windows, wrought iron balustrade and teak imitation doors. The house was built in 1973 but is obviously inspired by the previous two decades and the “A frame” structures that are popular in Mid Century Modern architecture. When we discovered the size of the garden that just made this place too good to pass up.

What did you do to the house first?

The first thing we did was redecorate pretty much every room, rip out all the carpets and put wooden floors throughout. The first build I started work on was the Tiki Bar in the garden. Since then we’ve refined what we did in 2012, build lots more structures in the garden and I built an extension onto the kitchen. There are still a long list of projects to do.