We had been searching for a home of our own to buy for a little while. Not eagerly looking, more like keeping an eye out for something nice.
I’d look at the budget houses. What I thought we could afford and possibly mould into something of own. My ideal was really to buy land and build our own home, like I’ve watched my parents do a few times now. I love the idea of having exactly what we want from the get-go, but Phil wasn’t really for that. He’d be searching for our ‘ideal’ home, which mostly turned out to be above our price range.
There was one Saturday when I thought, judging by the photos, I’d found a gem. It was super close to the school our kids go to, within our price range and ticked a few of the boxes….until we looked at it. It was so much smaller than it seemed and completely not what we were looking for. The same day Phil shows me a photo of a beautiful kitchen in a home he’d been eyeing off. I’m putting that down the strategy, as a lovely kitchen will always grab me. I immediately slotted it as another ‘out of our price range’ house, but hey, what have we got to loose, right? Lets go look at it.
From the moment we drove in and I saw the lush passionfruit vine on the fence, I knew we were in trouble. We walked through, and while we could see (some of) the work that needed to happen, I knew there was going to a big issue. Huge.
We loved the home.
Luckily, after offers, phone calls, appointments, countless emails, inspections, more phone call, stress, emails and packing….45 days later it became ours. Our own home.
No, it doesn’t look like that anymore….
It’s such a balance between Phil’s ideal home and my ‘I want to build’ home, with so much of it’s beautiful originality, but in need to so much TLC.
The inside is very much the typical early 1900’s Queenslander style, with the open verandah having been enclosed somewhere between 1949 – 1960 for that extra ‘sleep out’ that the Queenslander home became known for. It has original fret work above the doors (sorry, not pics as yet) but is in desperate need of a freshen up. And none of that can happen until the outside work is done.
We’ve had half of the stumps replaced so far, with half to go now that there is a drain down the side of the house to divert the water away from underneath the house.
The half an acre yard is surrounded by glorious trees (that for a month was home to a Koala!), which I love discovering. Phil has done so much work on the yard, it’s looking so different from when we first moved in. We just knew there was a hidden gem here. The front view, for example…
I’ve been loving exploring our own slice of paradise and working towards making it ours. In less than a year we’ve already done so much but have a small mountain of work still left to do. And you know what, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. So there’s no rush. Just one step at a time.
