Cairnton Farmhouse had been uninhabited for six years when it came into new hands.
There were roosting bats, rotten windows and a roof to replace, as well as shambles of trees and bushes encircling the house.
It needed a lot of work, but Kim Stephen and Ryan Carter could see its potential shining through.
Kim, 34, and Ryan, 33, gladly took on the challenge of breathing new life into a 180-year-old Aberdeenshire farmhouse while documenting the process on their Instagram.
Given the size of its rooms, which covered over 200 square metres, and granite in the stonework, Kim suspected its origins were a bit more grand than an ordinary farmhouse.
She contacted local historian Duncan Downie who found that Cairnton Farmhouse had been built on the Kemnay Estate in the 1840s as the home of Stuart Moubray Burnett, a brother of the laird at the time.
Fast forward to the 21st century and its newest owners were ripping out spongy thick pile carpet, pink striped wallpaper, and a baked potato they discovered wrapped in foil inside the oven.
"We joked at the beginning that we didn't keep very much in the house," Kim said. "More definitely went, but every period feature that we could keep, we did."
Before she met Ryan, the Aberdeen native had renovated her flat with her dad, who sadly died last year.
Ryan, who originally hails from Oban, had also redone his own flat and previously owned his own plumbing business.
The two sold the properties and lived with her parents for a year and half before Cairnton Farmhouse was move-in ready.
Part of the reason why Kim thoroughly photographed the transformation was to share every step of the process with her dad on days he wasn't helping.
"My dad was so excited about the house," Kim said.
He liked to drive past it and he once took visiting family members to see the property before they had even gotten the keys.
"Because he had been ill, he didn't help in the same way that he would have wanted to, in terms of doing physical work," she recalled.
"When he could, he totally would. He would come around and he was just quite happy to do all the crap jobs - all the ones that nobody else wanted to do, like taking down lath and plaster off the walls, you know, it was so dusty and horrible."
They worked with an architect, electrician, joiner, and carpenter, but the couple did most of the hands-on work themselves.
Kim and Ryan were keen to keep period features like the cornicing, stairs, and detailed architraves that framed the doors and windows.
But some decisions were more practical than anything, such as Kim's personal highlight of the renovation - the front door she was itching to toss into a bonfire.
The quote for a new door was a record-scratch moment that sent her down a rabbit hole of stripping, scraping, and sanding the weathered emerald and salmon relic into a sophisticated merlot entryway. She eventually restored all the other doors - 11 in total.
Three and a half years on, the couple have transformed the dwelling into a stylish country home at the centre of their six acre property.
The front hall, which is painted and panelled from floor to ceiling in the same red wine shade as the front door, leads off to a sage-coloured panelled snug (a small lounge) with a Chesterfield sofa.
Elsewhere you'll find a luxurious roll-top copper bathtub, a roomy kitchen with a fireplace and armchair, and Baxter the Cocker Spaniel.
They love hosting friends and family around their dining set thrifted from Facebook Marketplace, a resource of which Kim is an admitted super fan.
It all lends to the feeling of a friend's country getaway you're eager to be invited to - an atmosphere Airbnbs only emulate.
Even though renovating her flat with her dad was a tiny project in comparison, Kim says that experience sparked her interest and confidence in making over the farmhouse.
In a personal note on Instagram, Kim shared the news of her father passing away last December.
"He was our biggest fan, and probably the reason I started this account," she wrote.
Kim shared how he was always on hand for difficult tasks and a stickler for always doing things right.
She continued: "Most of my photos are of the back of his head as he was always working, always busy.
"We'll all miss him terribly, but we will make sure we keep taking photos of our progress and make sure we finish things inside and out the way he would have wanted.
"Our houses are just bricks and mortar, but the memories we have of those we love within them live on forever."
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