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The Old Church is a stunning building, carefully converted to a home in the early 1990's. There is a wealth of oak panelling, some stained glass windows and a beautiful oak staircase. The picture windown overlooking the bay has a magnificent view with unlimited opportunities to watch the local wildlife. The house is truly unique both in its fabric and location. It also has an incredibly warm and welcoming feeling.

Anybody already familiar with our other holiday home on Skye, Colgrain, in Edinbane (www.colgrainholidaycottage.co.uk) will not be surprised at just how well equipped The Old Church is despite being completely different in style. We have been delighted with the feedback we have had about Colgrain, in particular the attention to detail and the quality of all the furnishings and equipment. We tried very hard to make Colgrain a "home from home" and it seems, from our guests comments, that we succeeded. So we have done the same again with The Old Church and we are, quite frankly, delighted with the results.

Downstairs there is a spacious and bright lounge with the beautiful picture window overlooking the bay.
 
bespoke seating unit giving a perfect view of the TV
The lounge is extremely well equipped with a 32" wide screen TV, DVD recorder/player, Sky TV and a stereo system. There are also lots of books and some CDs and DVDs for your entertainment. For wildlife lovers there is a telescope looking out onto the bay. It is a lovely room to just simply sit still enjoy the peace and tranquility of the area. Being an old church there are not surprisingly a few charming quirks to the house. We puzzled for some time how it would be possible for everyone to watch the television using conventional seating. Luckily we have a friend who is an extremely talented upholsterer so he made this corner unit to fit perfectly into the room and solve the problem. We think his solution has worked perfectly!
The dining room is very spacious. We had a great time shopping for all the furniture for The Old Church and this room certainly got the benefit of this. There is a solid oak dining table and chairs, a beautiful sideboard and a lovingly restored pew. There is also a sofa which converts to a full sized double bed, also made by our clever upholsterer friend. For anyone using the sofa bed we have also provided a room divider to help maintain privacy. There is a collection of books about Scotland and Skye in particular with lots of maps to borrow. There is a picture rail all around the room which we have used to display an impressive collection of whisky boxes and tubes. If anyone wants to make a donation to the collection it would be most welcome!
 
The kitchen is extremely well equipped with a double electric oven and hob, a fridge and every cooking utensil we have been able to think of. There is a large fridge freezer, dishwasher, microwave, washing machine and tumble drier in the adjacent utility room (which used to be the vestry!). The kitchen is another of the somewhat quirky rooms in the house.
The room is L shaped with two lovely large windows making it bright and cheerful. For people who prefer to dine informally there is another oak table with genuine chapel chairs. We travelled all the way to Walton-on-Thames to source these having found out about a wonderful reclamation warehouse specialising in church architecture (check out www.churchantiques.com - it is fascinating!). There is also additional seating for anyone who wants to doze by the impressive wood burning stove while dinner is prepared. The solid oak dresser is full of jigsaws and games to keep you entertained. We have even provided a giant Portapuzzle so jigsaws don't have to take up the dining or kitchen tables.
There is one bedroom downstairs called "Coll and Tiree" with bunk beds, chest of drawers and bookcase, - spot the island theme for the bedrooms! Downstairs there is also a bathroom with WC, wash hand basin and bath.
         

The beautiful oak staircase leads from the lounge up to the landing. At the top of the stairs there is a lovely little recess. As soon as we saw it we immediately recognised it was a perfect spot for a little quiet reading. On one of our furniture shopping expeditions we came upon this lantern, dating originally from the 1920s. We thought it was just perfect for this little corner. We also bought something over 500 books for the house from various sources! Lots of these are on the landing so there is plenty to keep you occupied.

There are six large double wardrobes along the landing set into the eaves space.

      
There are three bedrooms upstairs, Arran, Barra and Islay, all of which have velux windows facing towards the bay. Arran has a king sized bed, while Barra and Islay can each be set up as either two single beds or as a king sized bed. All the bedrooms have maps of the islands they are names after and a selection of books as well.
Arran
Islay
Barra
Bathroom
Upstairs there is another bathroom with a wonderful shower - truly skin rippling!

Outside The Old church there is an exceptionally pretty cottage style garden. We have provided folding wooden garden furniture and, most importantly of all, have just taken delivery of our Midg-IT midgebusting machine (check out www.midgebusters.co.uk)!! These really are wonderful and will make all the difference to being able to enjoy the weather.

The garden is fully enclosed so your children and dogs should be safe from the neighbours - yes there really is a field of gorgeous "highland coos" right next door.