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.