Who: Maria and Andrzej Kosidło and their two children Veronika, 16, and Brendon, 11. Maria has a cleaning business and predominantly works at Logie Country House while Andrzej works as a quality inspector at Hydrogroup.
What: A spacious three-bedroom, semi-detached family home.
Where: 1 Burnside Gardens, Aberdeen, close to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary as well as Westburn Park and Victoria Park.
1 Burnside Gardens
As told to Rosemary Lowne
“We’re originally from Poland and we arrived in Scotland 19 years ago with nothing so we started from scratch.
Before we moved into our new home, we lived in Kincorth in a three-bedroom house.
We chose to move so we could be closer to Aberdeen Grammar School as we wanted our children to go to one of the best schools in the city.
We found our new home on the ASPC website – it had been on the market for quite some time.
It was only a two bedroom house but we could see its potential.
To be honest, we weren’t blown away after our first viewing as the garden was like a jungle but we liked the big driveway as most of the houses in this area have limited or only on-street parking.
Also, we’re not afraid of hard work so we decided to purchase the house and do the necessary refurbishments.
We had renovated our old house from top to bottom so we felt confident to take on this new project.
We had so many ideas as I love to design and Andrzej loves projects with wood work so we make a great team.
Maria and Andrzej bought home during lockdown
We purchased our home in May 2020 during lockdown.
It was a very long and difficult journey because everything was closed and everyone was working from home.
We sold our old house one week before we had the keys to our new property so we had to stay with friends.
Since we moved in, we’ve redecorated almost the entire house.
Only the upstairs bathroom hasn’t been changed.
We started with the children’s bedrooms then we redecorated the stairs and put in a new brick wall and changed all the floors.
We also plastered all the walls and ceilings downstairs and changed all the windows.
When that was done, we started the extension.
The extension was the most stressful part and it took the longest to complete.
We changed the floor plans a couple of times and in the end, we decided to make a bigger bedroom instead of a full size garage.
We feel is was the right decision as the space looks amazing now.
Amazing Aberdeen home makeover four years in the making
Last year, we completed work on the back garden and kitchen which is beautiful and is where we spend most of our time.
Overall, it took us four years to finish the house.
In terms of interiors, I prefer a cottage style while Andrzej prefers a more modern look so we both had to make concessions and we’re both very happy with the results.
For the walls, we had them plastered and painted in white as we don’t get a lot of sunshine in Aberdeen so the white walls make the house more bright.
We made most of our furniture and decorations ourselves or we would buy things second hand from Facebook Marketplace.
Our greatest challenge was living in the house during the refurbishment.
I love a clean and tidy house so it was difficult but we made it work and it was definitely worth it.
We are delighted with the end result and we wouldn’t change anything.
For us, we love everything, especially the open space.
We also love the location as we live in the city centre but it actually feels like we live in the country as we have foxes on the street sometimes and lots of birds waking us up every morning with beautiful singing.
We are also a short walk from both Victoria Park and Westburn Park.
My top tips for other people who are refurbishing their homes would be to take a look on Instagram for inspiration as there’s lots of accounts on decorating houses.”
1 Burnside Gardens, Aberdeen, is on the market for offers over £310,000. To arrange a viewing phone 01224 456789 or check out the website aspc.co.uk
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