The Story So Far

For a while now, my husband Dan and I have been looking for an escape from the suburbs of Brisbane. We've researched and worked for months towards that goal, getting our house in town ready for sale and exploring the rural areas west of Brisbane.

After a few false starts, we spotted an 11-acre property in our chosen corner of the Lockyer Valley. It was in a beautiful position and it had two houses on it. Best of all, it was very cheap.

The main house contains what was the original post office for the area. The second house is a small one-bedroom cottage that was once a school house.

Our first inspection was interesting. The house was filthy, and had several rooms locked off to visitors (as I write this, I still haven't seen inside them - I'm going to look tomorrow).

But, beyond that, it had a few redeeming features. It was solid, despite a dodgy veranda roof, and it had various original features including pressed metal ceilings, VJ walls and leadlight windows.

It was also huge.

The second house is a one-bedroom cottage which will be our temporary home while we get the big house clean and functional enough to move into.

We'll be moving in in mid-December. Looks like Christmas comes early for us this year!