Scot spends ten years turning old public toilet into stunning home by beach

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Scots painter and decorator spent 10 years with his wife transforming an abandoned public toilet into a stunning home by the beach.Alan Taylor, who is originally from Aberdeenshire, and his wife Elaine splashed out around £290,000 in total renovating the old loo in Barmouth, north-west Wales.

The couple, who now live in Greater Manchester, stalked the council's website for months waiting for the bog by the beach to be released for bidding to begin - and when it did they weren't sure what the right level of offer would secure the building.They ended up offering in a blind bidding process £33,000 which was accepted, back in 2015.

Elaine, 53, told Wales Online: "We were on holiday in Barmouth and the council had put a for sale sign up on the building. We thought that it would amazing because of its proximity to the sand dunes and the sea, and what an opportunity to renovate something and improve the area, take something that’s unloved, unused and make it into something really nice."A lot of people told us ‘that’s an interesting choice!’ and I think you hear about things like this a bit more now - but when we bought it I think it was quite unusual and people kept asking if we were keeping them as toilets!"They couple instead decided to realise a personal dream.

Elaine explained: "We had always thought about buying a property by the seaside but we’d always resisted because I understand why it’s not a good thing for the local economy, not good for young people in the area, and pushes the house prices up."So part of the reason we bought and transformed the empty toilet block was because we felt like we weren’t taking housing stock away and we were just improving the area by reviving an abandoned building."It has been shut