Photo

Front Door

Awesome Bay Window!!

Oringinal Qlder Fretwork

Family Room and doors to Bedrooms

Family Room and Doors to future kitchen and Bedroom

Bedrooms

Council!

Yay! we finally submitted to council!  Our council did not require a bond, however it did cost us $2500 to submit the application (not that I blame them, having to go through THAT much paperwork!!) We should know what's what inside 10 business days. . .

Drafting, Engineering and Waste Water

The removal guys recommended a consulting group that organised everything for us to put through council.  I knew exactly the layout I wanted already, so that made it incredibly easy for the draftsman to alter his plans.  He designed and engineered an extended deck as well.  We had a soil and sight evaluation done so that the stumps could be engineered to the right specifications.  Also because we are classified as a cyclone area we had to upgrade our tie downs and braces - which the removalists have to install in the house.  (this cost us close to $3000 to upgrade).

The waste water system was determined on the number of bedrooms and the soil type.  We are rural so we needed to install a septic system which includes a 3000L tank and 2 seepage trenches 14meters long by 2.5meters wide & 400mm deep..  I havent coordinated costs yet, because it is still at the paperwork stage.  The consulting company also did an energy efficiency rating (20 pages long!!)
Needless to say, after printing all the plans and paperwork and council forms I had a book's worth of paper to submit to council!

Doing the Research, asking the questions

Once I had found someone that moved houses to our area even from 600klms away, it was a matter of looking at the houses that they had in stock to see if any were suitable! I knew that older queenslander designs were generally impractical, but if the house had 'Good Bones' small changes could be made to internal walls (as long as they weren't load bearing). The original house I looked at would have been a three piece move 600klms and the mover was not sure how the house would fare going that far in three pieces! The mover was keen to sell me a house that he needed to get rid of closer to where we lived.  The house needed to be moved asap because the block needed to be vacated within 3 months!  I wasnt sure looking at the photos that I would be happy with the house - but I was willing to drive the 4.5 hours to have a look (and an exuse to get away for the weekend).  I had downloaded the floorplan from the mover's website (all good removal house sellers readily provide floorplans) and the plan had potential.  When we got the the place, it was pretty overgrown and obviously hadnt been lived in for a while, the minute I walked inside I fell in love with the place.  There was no way from looking at the photos on line that I could have seen the potential for this place - the scale was by far more grand, and the general feel of the place was warm and inviting! Needless to say we went away and discussed our finances and signed the contract as soon as we got appoval!  The house was advertised for $150K and we got it for $15K less than asking.  Because we are Rural we have to install water tanks and septic systems.  We have borrowed $180K.  The purchase price includes reassembly and onto box steel stumps.  The house is in relatively good conditions so hopefully we wont have to do too much to it.  We are relocating the kitchen, and renovating the 2 bathrooms as well as separating the toilet from the main bathroom and putting in a laundry (being an old qlder means the original laundry was under the house). The house was also vinyl clad (so no painting the exterior). We are putting it onto low stumps - it was going to cost us $6-$7K more to put it up to legal height underneath.

WELCOME!!

As long as I can remember my hopes and dreams have been nothing more extravagant than to have a family and a beautiful home on acreage.  My dreams have slowly been coming true!  I married a wonderful man and we are raising 2 awesome kids in an idealic country setting! Im in heaven!! The only thing that has been missing is that beautiful home (materialistic, I know) I have fully investigated EVERY possible way to go about making that dream come true for the last 3 years.  We are by far low income earners, so making this dream a reality has aways been a distant ambition.  We live in a shed at the moment and the seasonal water feature that is our back wall has become tiresome and living with all sorts of wildlife has been interesting - but im ready for those finishing touches that a home offers - Like a telephone and a weatherproof back wall!! It was only by chance stumbling across a website that I found the perfect home for us!!
All my life my parents have renovated old houses and i get very excited when I see the end product compared to what we started with! I always wanted to do one on my own so that is why I was investigating removal homes.  I have to admit I am sceptical about cutting a perfectly good home in half and moving it 400klms then restumping and shoving it back together again, reassembling the roof and THEN rennovating it!! I know old Queenslanders are tough but can they really withstand that sort of punishment?  I guess we will find out over the next few months because we have officially signed the contract!! YAY!