When I found this home over a year ago for sale it was love at first sight, it was exactly the style of home I was looking for, Bungalow/ Queenslander design, mostly renovated, painted white and I loved the black and white striped awnings, perfect!
The backyard needed some work, I wanted to open up the back verandah's to have more open spaces and in time we could build more rooms underneath, I had it all worked out! only problem on auction day we were one million dollars short, thats all!!!
Okay I was a little disappointed, I had visions of this beautiful white timber home, I was more than prepared to re-do the kitchens, bathrooms even a repaint throughout, in other words a minor renovation was not a problem, after all how hard can renovating be?
So we continued to look only to be disappointed, it seemed every house we loved wasn't in our price bracket, we didn't expect a big block of land or even a view, sure I would love a house that looked like it belonged in the Hamptons. (I took this photo while in the Hamptons)
The reality was an entirely different matter, thats until we called a friend who just happened to know of a house about to come on the market, we did a drive by..........
Its hard to tell from this photo, but the house actually sits high on the hill on a corner block, the home was vacant so we did the sneak peak hoping we wouldn't get caught, inside the rooms were spacious and the ceiling fret work was amazing, the city views incredible, we actually had to pinch ourselves could we be this lucky, it even was in our price range, we knew in an instant we wanted this house!
The very next day the house was ours, then came the buyers remorse! it actually had only two bedrooms and we were a large family, so problem solved we would just raise the house, create more bedrooms, I would get my studio and everyone would be happy.
That was a year ago and we are still renovating and we are still renting :( what was a small job became a monster renovation that soaks up more money than we ever imagined, one wall comes down only to find more repairs, more work, more money, but to be truly honest we have fallen in love with our home and whilst its a labour of love and at times hate, its a journey I wont forget in a hurry. We are about half way through the renovations so I thought I would share the final journey with you, complete with the highs and lows!